Kid Stuff
by wolfshalom
Summary: The BAU gets a new technician, but what happens when a kidnapper abducts the newest member of their family, her friend, and Hotch's son, Jack? And just what is the mystery behind this kid? And what happens after the abduction. Rated T for mild mentions of child abuse and mental illness: nothing too graphic. Some humor and Romance: No sexual content. Please Reid&Review.
1. Chapter 1

**Okay, venturing out and trying my first Criminal Minds fanfic. Reviews are always helpful and welcome. Hope you enjoy.**

**Chapter 1 **

They didn't know much about me: the new ITS/Programmer. I was 22 years old, a melting pot of conflicting emotions, painfully thin, and deathly silent. Two weeks ago, I had received a letter saying that I was to requested to be employed in the FBI and help maintain and fix their technological equipment. I had assumed that the BAU would have known I was coming, since I was assigned to their wing, but they seemed more than a little shocked to see some skinny fresh-out-of-college girl walking nervously down the hallways (or were they surprised to see my companion: a one hundred and ten pound female service dog, Taliyah or Tali for short).

Either way, I sure got some strange looks.

"Who are you?" A tall man with black hair and dark piercing eyes demands.

"The new tech-head for this wing. Who are you? I'm Adva; what's up?"

"Aaron Hotchner. Call me Hotch." We shake hands and he eyes Taliyah warily. "Why?" He questions with a brisk nod to indicate the large canine.

"Got me. The boss-man requested I bring her with me on my rounds." I shrug, "you having any computer difficulties while I'm here?"

"No, but Reid is." He walks away without a second glance at me or my dog. Okay, then...

Why do they have reeds in the FBI and what purpose could they possibly serve? And why are reeds operating computers—they're plants!

**…**

I continue walking and look around me with large eyes. _Better face it_, I think, _you're lost. _Within the span of three hours I had fixed six computers: none of which had been damaged by pond reeds…or even water. I sigh: guess it was true, lunatics ARE everywhere. Taliyah stares up at me and whines softly as if sensing my despair at getting lost. Smiling weakly, I pat her head. Guess I'll just have to swallow my pride and see if any of these agents will help me out…and hopefully not decide to prank the new kid.

Hopefully.

**…**

An solid mass suddenly slams into me, throwing me and the unknown attacker onto the ground. A man with light brown skin jumps easily back to his feet. Taliyah snarls when he reaches down to help me up and he instantly brings his hand back to his side.

With an apologetic and nervous smile he says, "Sorry, kid. Are you alright?"

I move carefully to my feet and glance at my dog: tense but not hostile. Good. I nod. "Yep. Not dead yet."

"Derek Morgan and you are?"

"Awesome personified. Most people just call me Batman, but you can call me by my name: Adva." We shake hands.

"Well, sorry again for knocking you over. You sure you're alright?" At my nod he continues. "So, anything I can help you with? You lost or something? We don't usually get many visitors here."

"And 'here' would be?"

"BAU."

"YES!" I yell and jump into the air with my fists above my head.

"What?" My feet hit the ground and I quickly put my arms back down.

"Sorry," I say sheepishly, "I was looking for this wing and got a little…off track a few hours ago."

"And you're, like, what, exactly? A new profiler?"

"No, even better: the best ITS and programmer in the world, yo."

"Really, now? You're just a kid!"

I narrow my eyes. "So…can you show me the way? You kind of owe me for trying to kill me earlier."

"Right, sorry." He shrugs, "Follow me then." He shows me to a large room. "Oh yeah, Reid needs you. His device is probably about to fill out a restraining order against him."

"Okay, then…" Why would a computer file a restraining order? That's physically impossible! The United States hasn't developed an AI yet! Or...have we?

Reid, it turned out, was actually a lanky guy around 26 years old: definitely not a plant. His hand slaps the computer tower impatiently before he shaking in head in agonized frustration.

"I know this'll sound a little unorthodox, and perhaps a bit radical, but 'roughing up one's computer' never helps." He looks at me and narrows his eyes in bewilderment as if to say, _who are you?_ "So, what seems to be the problem?"

"It won't turn on."

"Plugged in?"

"Affirmative."

"One sec." It only takes a minute to remedy the situation. His brown eyes light up in surprise and awe as he watches the dead carcass of his machine revive smoothly back to life.

"How'd you do that?"

"Magic." We both grin and someone behind me snorts.

"I don't believe it." The man from earlier (Morgan?) exclaims and slaps my back. I flinch and Taliyah bares her teeth, making him retract his hand instantly.

"Tali! Dai!" I yell. Her fur flattens instantly and sits down, head bowed in silent shame. Her lips curl back again to reveal her fangs. "Dai." I say sternly, watching as the hostility slips away.

"You just tell that dog to kill me?!" Morgan yelped, eyebrows furrowing in anger.

"Nope. It's d-a-I not d-i-e, dude. It's Hebrew and means 'enough' or calm down'…not drop dead." I shrug, "Perhaps, next time."

Morgan walks away.

Reid looks at me, "So, why does a computer technician need a service dog?"

"Why does someone who goes to crime scenes to identify computers require a computer?"

His mouth twitches into a half smile: "Touché."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

They began taking. Hotch's eyes scan the room and linger on me for an instant but he makes no move to order me out of the room. Besides him and Morgan, no one else seems to notice that I'm in the room. Huh, maybe I should have been a professional ninja instead seeing how, being in a room filled with Profilers, I'm invisible. Next time, baby.

Taliyah is sleeping on the floor beneath me and I feel her shift and put her head on top of my foot. I squirm slightly but continue to hold Hotch's icy stare. He finally looks away from me and to a cork board behind him, but little did I know, it was _far_ from over.

"The killings began two weeks ago." Pictures are pinned to the board. Fourteen victims, all teenage girls—older than fifteen but below the age of eighteen. Caucasian. Long brown hair. Skinny. I look away, back to my monitor. Hotch continues: "At each crime scene this symbol was found."

"So, a signature?" Morgan inquires.

I glance up at the symbol and narrow my eyes in disagreement. _No,_ I think_. Not a 'signature,' a tag_. But I say nothing. In a room full of Profilers, someone will eventually catch it; so why mention it and draw attention to myself? I just want to finish fixing this machine, and leave. Better to say silent. Better to be invisible.

"It appears so." Hotch replied, his dark eyes catching my expression before I hurriedly hide behind the computer monitor.

Or, maybe I was wrong: they won't catch it anytime soon. Oh, well. Not it's my job and certainly_ not_ my problem.

"It looks like some sort of Celtic symbol. The girls are all dressed in clean white t-shirts—shirts that they were not wearing when abducted. It could have been a human sacrifice ritual." I shake my head slightly, keeping my eyes fixed firmly to the monitor: _virus scanning 54% complete_.

"Something you want to add?" Hotch once again zeroes in on me.

The room goes silence and it feels as if the back of my neck has been lit on fire. My skin crawls and I know that every eye in the room had now latched onto me. Like a fly entangling itself in gooey golden honey, I was also trapped and without escape. I swallow and continue to stare at the monitor, my cheeks turning red from embarrassment. I stay silent, the words 'if I can't see you, you can't see me' ringing through my head. Unfortunately, those words were not true. Taliyah starts to snore, so now, anyone who didn't know I was in the room was surely looking this way. I hate that man. I really do.

"Adva?" Hotch adds, irritation from being ignored sharping the word.

"Sir?" I croak hesitantly and slide down in my chair to make myself smaller as though hoping that, by vanishing from sight, I'll also vanish from his memory. It fails.

"You didn't agree with Morgan or Reid observations. Explain. Now." Well, so long for escaping unnoticed, aye?

"Um…well…" I mumble.

"Please. Stand up." I realize something at that moment: I don't like public speaking. Or Hotch.

Inhale.

Exhale.

I stand and look at him defiantly—a raging tsunami of green slicing into a sharp hailstorm of icy brown. "It's a gang symbol not a Celtic one." If shock were a sound and not silence, it would be deafening in these small quarters. Hotch's eyebrows shoot up slightly in surprise and I go on, my chest aching slightly from sadness for having to call Reid out on his mistake. So, far, he's the only one I'd even consider for a friend… guess not. He won't even want to be near me now, let alone befriend me. "And those squiggles in the center? That's Arabic. The gang uses it to communicate to one another, but they are not Islamic, so...the victims were not killed by religious radicals, neither Celtic or Islamic." I don't look at Reid; I don't want to see his expression.

"How do you know this?" Aaron presses.

"I am familiar with the gang associated with these types of tags. They're a small organization that started in north Florida and invaded into south Georgia, where I'm from, and, now, apparently, Kansas," I shrug, "So, it's not that difficult to identify a group that you're used to seeing. And the tags litter the entire town. After a white of looking at them, I figured out, to an extent, as to what they mean." I look back to the computer monitor and wipe my sweaty palms on my black slacks: _82% complete_. Ugh! This is awful! "Different tags have different Arabic words inside them, which is how you know what the message is...by looking at the Arabic. This one for example is a warning."

"A warning?" Morgan questions critically.

"Yep. It's sort of like a territory marker."

"Like an 'enter at your own risk' kind of thing?" Reid asks. I chance a look at him, expecting to see anger at pointing out his blunder but instead find him looking at me with silent fascination and respect.

I smile slightly at him with shaky relief and nod, "Exactly." _100% complete_. Yes! Now I can get out of here! I talk quickly, the words jumbling together as they spill clumsily out of my mouth. "Well, I got to go now—lots of work to do. Lots of computers to fix."

I move towards the door. Tali yawns and walks at my feels and glances tiredly at the agents.

"Not so fast," Hotch moves to block me off, "We'll be going to Kansas to investigate the murders and I believe that your insight and experience from dealing with this gang would be helpful."

"I…" His dark eyes slice into me. "I'm not a Profiler…I…fix computers."

"We often bring our laptops with us when we go out into the field. You can come along to repair any damages to the hardware as well as give us any useful insight."

"Um…"

The door slams open and crashes loudly into the wall. "We got a new techie and no one told me! Where is the new guy?" A portly woman with long blond hair rushes in, her body practically exploding with excitement.

"Right there." A dark haired woman to my left that Morgan called Emily points to me. Before her sentence is even finished the blond's arms wrap around me and drag me into a suffocating embrace.

"I'm Garcia." With that she drags me from the room and towards a small cave-like office. "And this is my workplace. You like it?" I nod, all words fleeing from my mind.

"It's...awesome." I smile nervously.

"So, we'll be working together in here from now on with hacking and such when you aren't doing repairs. So, how are you liking it so far? The job?"

"It's cool."

"Great," She turns back to her work and I slip quietly out the door.

"We'll be leaving tomorrow at 0400." Hotch announces.

"I don't have anyone to watch my dog." The excuse claws its way up my throat and leaps past my lips. I can't go if it means my companion will starve. Hotch, however, had already prepared for this.

"You are to bring her with you actually. It says in your file that you trained your canine like a police dog, which means she'll be able to follow a scent trail-this could prove useful in the investigation." My heart drops. What? That's not fair! I don[t want to go!

And then he walks away.

Wonderful.

**…**

It's night.

I grab my skateboard and ride home. Taliyah runs ahead of me, propelling me forward, as we head to our small apartment. A tall lanky figure walks ahead of us and instantly makes room to allow us to pass, but I drag my foot, a code to tell Taliyah to slow to walk and to be alert. Just in case this person poses a threat.

The figure turns. It's Reid. I let out a sigh of relief and and stomp my foot to tell her to catch up to him.

"Hey." We drawl up beside him and I kick my board into my hands and place it under my arm so I can walk beside him, "What are you doing out here?"

"Going home." He motions towards my motel.

"You live there?"

"Yeah, what about you? You following me? Still lost, huh, rookie?" He jokes and nudges my arm playfully with his elbow.

I grin, "No, not lost. I'm new to the area, so I rented a room there."

"Really? Which room?"

"5B."

"That's crazy!"

"What is? Is something wrong with that apartment?"

"No, I live next door in 4B."

"Seriously?"

"Yes."

"Huh."

We walk up the stone steps onto the second story.

"Well, see you tomorrow. Think you can show me the way? You know," I nudge his elbow with my own. "Since, apparently, I'm dysfunctional with directions?" He laughs and we shake hands.

"Of course. Good night."

"'Night."

**Okay, so, I'm new to Criminal Minds (and loving it!) and am only in the first season, and, therefore, I have no idea where anyone lives. But I like the Reid/Adva next door neighbor thing, so I think I keep it. Sorry is this bothers anyone.**


	3. Chapter 3

**Alright, things are going to start picking up in pace now. Hope you enjoy and please review.**

**Chapter 3**

When I was told to accompany the BAU to Kansas, I never could have imagined just how quickly everything would go wrong. Or just how terrifying it can really be when your world violently imploded into a thousand sharp fragments. I received the call about an hour from landing. The BAU were busy talking about potential Unsubs and blissfully let me sit out. When I got the call, I had never been more worried in my entire life. My chest froze, my eyes teared up, and icy cold terror replaced the blood that ran through my veins.

And suddenly, I was glad to be on that aircraft.

The number displaced was not one that I recognize. Normally, I would have hung up no problem. This time was different. This time, I had to answer and I can't explain why; I didn't expect her to be on the other side of the phone, and I certainly didn't expect the danger that would soon follow at my heel.

"Hello?" I answer quietly, pitching my voice so that it won't drift over to the Profilers and distract them.

"Adva? Help!"

"Hali?" My little sister. Four years younger. "What's going on? What happened?"

"I want to go home!"

"'Home'?" My voice gets louder and the others turn to look at me questionably before turning back to their work. I try to remain calm but the dark presence of doom is now lingering behind me, tapping me incessantly on the shoulder. "What do you mean?"

"I was kidnapped! Come get me! Please, Adva!" She breaks down into hysterics. Oh, no. This is not good.

"Where are you?" She continues to sobbing. I try again. "Hali, where are you?" She's in the Kansas countryside, alone on the dark and frigid roads, but she won't be for long. She had just crawled her way out of captivity and we only know too well how long it'll be until her demons come out to hunt her down and drag her back. There had been three of them: men, early forties, Caucasian. They left to run to a store. Seeing as how Hali was trapped in their basement, they must have figured it impossible for her to escape: big mistake.

Never underestimate a Wolfe.

She had gone to steal their car in escape in it…but she couldn't find the keys. So, she chose to walk—unwise. Now, all they had to do was drive down the road, grab her, and dump the body. No one would ever know. Except me.

I look at the team. They're starting to glance at me now, as if sensing the storm within that is raging furiously. I swallow in an effort to try to quench the flames. Not working.

"I see headlights!" Hali squeaks and I don't have to see her to know she's crying—shivering with a mixture of cold and fear.

"Is there anything you can hide behind?" Hotch narrows his eyes at me but in irritation at being disrupted—but with confusion. _What is this techie talking about?_ he must be wondering.

"No."

"What about a ditch? The road ditch? You could get in that and curl up really small. Stay quiet…maybe they won't notice you." It's a long shot, but she said it was dark. He could keep driving…pass right by her. Please, let them not find her.

"Adva? What's going on?" Hotch asks, a dark eyebrow lifting in what may be concern. I ignore him.

"Stay calm, okay? Everything'll be fine."

"Promise?"

I'm nodding in reply before realizing that she can't hear me. "I promise." Apparently, she had been wrong. The car was coming from the direction of her latest prison: there had been four subjects.

Not three but _four _lunatics intending my sister harm.

Oh, Hali…

What have you gotten yourself into?

I'm getting irritable with worry—oh well. It's not going to kill me, right? But now I have _another_ call coming through and that same feeling gut feeling to answer. Against my better judgment, I tell Hali to sit tight for a second. I mean…what else can I do to help her?

I don't want to hear the truck's wheels pulling up along side her. The opening of the door. Her screams as she's dragged back into harm's way and into certain death. After all, a live victim can make a positive ID, and corpses can't speak.

"Let me take this call, and then I'll call the police. Okay? Just stay calm and try to hide. Blend in to the ground, Hali." Every eye is on me, but I refuse to meet their watchful gaze.

"What's going on, kid?" Morgan asks, his head cocked slightly to side. But I don't know. I don't know what's going on—I didn't even know she's been kidnapped, or not in Georgia for that matter! How'd they get her all the way to Kansas…and why didn't anyone tell me?

"No, Adva! They have a police scanner in the car! They'll find me!" So calling the police and telling them her location would most certainly put her in the ground.

Permanently.

"Alright, alright. Stay calm. I'll be back in a second."

I hang up and answer the call. "What is it?" I don't bother with pleasantries.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

"Oh my god! You're alive!" One of my best friends, Cassie exclaims. A wave of confusion and helplessness threatens to drown me.

"Of course I am! Why wouldn't I be?"

"Turn on the news." She hangs up. What is going on?

"Um, can you guys turn the news on?"

"Sure. What's wrong?" A blond woman (JJ) asks. Concern shimmering in her eyes.

I shrug. "Apparently. I'm dead." The TV clicks on and her head snaps back to look at me and I can hear the unspoken 'what' reverberating in the silence.

…

_Two hours ago 22 year old Adva Wolfe was found dead in her childhood home. And this message was written on the wall of the home in red:_

_Tiny soldier_

_Such high hopes _

_Losing the war—hard to cope. _

_In a house made of stone:_

_It's a prison, not a home_

_Her sister, Hali, had been abducted roughly 36 hours prior to the homicide of her older sister, Adva, and believes to have been abducted by the killers. If anyone has any more information on Hali or Adva Wolfe that could shed more light onto this great tragedy, please, don't hesitate to call._

_…_

My heart stops. I know that stanza! I wrote that! But…that's not right. The poem has been altered. There were three stanzas in all: one for me (this one), one for my friend Cassie, and one for Clark.

In a house made of stone:

It's a prison, not a home

That's wrong. They took that the bottom two lines of Cassie's part. It's supposed to be:

Protects the heart and fights for peace

In the hopes that the pain will finally cease.

Then it hits me: the perverse alteration was done on purpose, as a warning. Cassie is in danger. Cassie is next. My fingers shake as I call her back.

"You're in danger. Get of your house."

"I think someone is in here, Adva." Her voice whispers frantically.

"Get out Cassie! Run!" She doesn't listen. Something glass shatters and I hear Cassie scream just as the line goes dead. And then she' gone. Is she dead? Is she alive? I don't know.

I want to know.

"Is everything…okay?" Reid asks me.

Ignoring him, I punch in the number Hali called me from, my voice low: "You ok?"

"It's still coming."

"How far away?"

"About two hundred yards." Okay, so the attackers are not close, but still too close for comfort.

"Okay. Hang on." I hang up, type in a new number.

"Hey, Scotty. Yeah, it's me Adva Wolfe. Do mind calling police to this location for me? Remember, you owe me, like, thirty."

He does it and then asks me why.

What would he say if he knew I was luring killers away from my sister? Would he freak out? Would he have still helped me? Who knows? We aren't friends: never have been and never will be. I tutored him in school and took favors instead of money. This is the first time I've ever asked anything of him.

It feels weird…wrong somehow.

Too bad I don't care.

"I'm conducting an experiment." I say nothing else and he doesn't ask me to elaborate. Good. I wasn't going to. I hang up on him, call Hali back, and wait impatiently for her to pick up.

"I'm okay." She sounds small, childish, fragile.

What I want to do is reach my hand through the phone, grab her, and drag her to safety and hug her tightly until everything is okay again. But will it ever be? A girl everyone think is me just died, Hali was kidnapped and subjected to God knows what, and the terrible unknown has enveloped one of my best friends.

My _only_ friends.

And it's not over yet.

"They're leaving." Her whispered voice comes out shaky with relief and I can almost hear hope hesitantly crawling back into her. "Adva, they're leaving!"

I sigh. "Good. When they're out of sight, start walking and go into the nearest town. Call me when you get there. Do you have any money on you?"

"Yeah, I grabbed thirty dollars from a table on the way out."

"Good, buy some new clothes with it." My neck is burning under the scrutinizing stares of the BAU, and still I refuse to meet their worried gazes. I don't want them to think I'm afraid: because I am. And I hate it. We hang up. For a while, I sit in silence before finally raising to meet the eyes of the BAU.

"What's going on?" Reid asks and I can see genuine concern radiation from his thin, lanky form.

"One of my bests friends may have just died." A lump is forming in my throat, but I force it down. "My sister is in Kansas. I need to pick her up when we land."

"What is going on?" Hotch demands. "Why was there a dead body on the news with your name?"

"I'm not sure what's going on—I'm just finding all this out as well." I hold eye contact. "And as for the body, I have no idea who it is or why they were killed. I don't know if that girl was supposed to be me or if the killer missed his target, but, either way, it's not good."

"Do you have any enemies? Anyone who would want you dead?"

"I was a wallflower, and it's my understanding that it's kind of hard to hate someone who's invisible, sir."

Then I explain about the poem, about Hali, and Cassi. No one said a word, and I realized that, maybe for the first time in forever, something had truly shocked these people—and that wasn't easy. So, what do you do when even the 'best of the best' are at a loss for what action to take?

You don't know?

Yeah, me either.

"How long until we land? Any ideas?" I ask, knowing full good and well that I won't like the answer.

"At least another hour." JJ says softly before turning to look out the window.

Agent Emily stands up slowly and moves to sit behind me and wrap her arms around my shoulder in what she believes are normal and comforting gestures. I jump up the moment her arm comes in contact with my own and quickly move to a different seat—as far from her as I can get and then mask my discomfort by calling and warning my friend Clark of possible danger and then calling my father. Both would be leaving the familiarity of Georgia and going into the great unknown of the Kansas frontier at Hotch's urging. It was better he said, to have everyone in one place, just in case. He didn't mention Cassie. He didn't mention the body.

I nod.

"Alrighty then."


	5. Chapter 5

**Thanks for continuing to this point—you guys are awesome! I've noticed a few of you have skipped chapter 3 and gone on to chapter 4: they go hand in hand with each other. If you don't read 3, you may get a little lost. They're sort of like a Part 1, Part 2 sort of deal...**

**Chapter 5**

I'm out the door the moment the doors open. Reid will later tell me that he called my name to get me to wait for him, but I don't if that's true or not: the only sound I heard when exiting the airport was the sound of my heart beating furiously in my chest. And he had followed me. He walked straight and tall beside me and when he hopped into one of the FBI vans, I got in as well. Never saying a word, he stared out the windshield at the flat landscape, his leg bouncing up and down as he drove. At one point he looks at me and smiles nervously, but I pretend not to see him: I don't know what to even _begin _to say to him. 'Thank you' sounds to cheesy for what he's done—staying with me in a moment of desperation— and would never suffice to even _begin_ to describe the gratitude I feel.

Because, for the first time in my life, I didn't want to be alone.

We would pick Hali up and meet the others at the hotel we're staying at until going back to Washington. And then figure out what to do from there.

**…**

It takes only thirty minutes to get to my sister, but it feels like an eternity. I find her in a park, just where she told me she'd be. She's sitting under a bench and has her arms wrapped tightly over her knees, her cautious green eyes stalking us from the van to her. Her hair is dirty and covered in grease, her clothes ripped and worn, her face caked in dirt. The only place you can see the color of her skin on her face is where the tears wore down a path.

But she was alive.

She was okay.

That was what really mattered.

Reid called Hotch and told the others agents that everything was fine and that we were okay. My arms wrapped tighter and my sister and then slowly began to walk her to the car. Again, Reid gives me a hesitant smile and his eyes flash with something akin to guilt, but what does he have to feel sorry about? He's not her big sister—I am. He wasn't supposed to know if she was okay or not…I was.

**...**

This time, I drive, and the first place we go is to a McDonald's.

"Want some?" I ask before jumping out of the vehicle and walking away, not bothering to wait for an answer. Hali needed to eat—and so did I. Before we hopped on the plane to depart, Morgan had suggested we all go and grab a bite to eat—which was lie. We didn't 'grab any bites'. We simply ate the food at a restaurant but here's the catch: it was BBQ, and I wasn't hungry. Apparently, terror can work up an appetite. Who knew, right?

"So, what are you hungry for?" I ask Hali.

She shrugs, tells me a number and sits down in an empty—although slightly dirty—booth. Reid walks in.

"How are you doing?" His voice is low, quiet.

I shrug, "I'm fine and Hali seems okay. No injuries and stuff."

He nods. "So, who do you think did it? Kidnapped your sister, I mean, and attacked your friend?"

I move forward and order our food and then ask him if her wants anything before stepping away from the counter.

"I don't know. I wish I did," Because then I'd then kill them. My father owns roughly 20 acres of land down in Georgia, shouldn't be that hard to hide the body.

I continue: "She didn't mention knowing any of them. Chances are, they're strangers. Probably a crime of opportunity. She was staying after school doing extracurricular..." I shrug, "Her friend's mom offered to give her ride, dropped her off our house. Dad had taken the other kids with him on errands and when he got back—no Hali."

Swallowing, I continue, "He didn't think anything of it. In the past, when we got bored, we'd hang out in the forest, so he had assumed that was where she was. He waited five hours after he got back for her to get home before trying to find her. And two hours after that to alert the police." But not me. He didn't alert me.

"And then she called you after she escaped."

"Yeah, on a stolen phone. It was lying on the table and she grabbed it and the cash."

"Where was your mom during all this? Do you know?"

"I don't have a mom." The words come out fast and angry. If words were a physical object rather than varying wavelengths moving through the medium that is the air, then mine would have a knife: deadly, and cruel, and dangerous as it sliced into him. But he doesn't seem offended, only slightly hurt as if he should have known this. Should have detected the absence of my mom. Profiled it.

"I'm sorry." He murmurs.

"It's not that big a deal." I try to smile and shrug it off, but I'm sure he can still see the turmoil raging within.

"So…is it okay if I ask what happened to her? I mean, you don't have to answer...if you don't want to."

"She left. She was sick and felt that it was time to leave and so she did." The tone of my voice leaves no room for discussion.

He nods. "Okay."

**…**

The moment Hali and I step into the hotel JJ and Emily wrap us into their arms. I tense every muscle in my body and wait impatiently for the embrace to end. They pull back.

"Are guys okay?" Why does everyone keep asking that?

"Yep." I shoulder my way past them and sit down on the couch. In the room there are two twin beds and a bed that rolls out into another bed. I guess Hali and I are sharing the couch.

"That bad a day?" Emily asks, cocking her head slightly to the side and moves to sit on the couch—I put my feet on it before she can sit; I don't want to be anywhere near her.

"Long day." I close my eyes, pretend to sleep. Why can't they just leave me alone? After ten minutes of trying to engage me in needless conversation, they leave. I open my eyes and see Hali snickering at me.

"What?" I raise my eyebrows in mock surprise.

"You're so mean." She dissolves into giggles.

"I'm anti-social and dislike physical contact of any kind—mean is forcing me to converse and hug someone with whom I do not know. So," I sit raise myself up on my elbow, "How's college?" She throws a pillow at my head and I block it with my forearm. "Hopefully, it's going better than your aim—because that was awful."

She tackles me and when the female agents walk in we're laughing and I have Hali in a headlock. Immediately I jump to my feet, grab my leather backpack, and walk into the bathroom to take a shower. Their eyes track me to the bathroom doorway and I hear Hali break out into another fit of giggles. Well, at least she's feeling better.

But what about Cassie?

I force the thought away. She's fine. She has to be. Tomorrow, I'll wake up and it'll all be just a dream. Some stupidly crazy nightmare.

But I didn't know things were only just beginning.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6**

I wake up around three o'clock in the morning. Taliyah lies on the ground and snores softly. Hali is stretched across the couch-bed-thing, nearly pushing me off, and the women are also deeply entwined in slumber.

These are the nights that I hate the most: the nights where you wake up, your mind racing a thousand miles a minute, and, despite your exhaustion, you can't sleep. You have to move or do something, your skin crawling, adrenaline pulsation through your veins.

Usually, when this happens, I go for runs. Slip outside into the cool night air and race until my lungs burn and my feet ache. But, can I do that now? Just disappear into the darkness, run the forbidden trails, dance with danger, lurk in the shadows? Would it be considered morally wrong? To disappear while I'm still, technically, 'on the clock'?

Inhale.

Exhale.

I have to move. The walls are closing in, tightening and coiling all around me. To pace would wake everyone up, as would turning on a lamp to read, and then what? They'd kill me for sure. Grabbing a piece of paper, I scribble a message to my sister:

_0430. _

_Hali,_

_Sorry, couldn't sleep, went for a run. Shouldn't be gone more than two hours. Don't irritate the agents. Will leave Tali in your care. If not back by noon, call the cops (just kidding. I'll be fine). Stay away from the scissors while I'm gone,_

_Wolfe out, yo._

_P.S if they wake up before I'm back, tell them to just give me a call and I'll come back, 'aight?_

Placing the note on the night table beside me I move quietly to my feet and change in the bathroom. They'll all be up by six or so, what's a few hours to myself going to hurt? Telling Tali to _shev_ (sit) and to _hishar_ (stay), I slip out of the apartment with nothing more than my clothes, a flashlight, and a switchblade in hidden in my shoes.

I had forgotten my phone in my bag: big mistake.

"_Kelov tov_!" I whisper (good dog).

What I didn't know was that I should have brought Tali…because she alone would have saved me from the monsters that waited patiently to face me. I ran to the park and raced wildly through the trees. The dew soaked my socks and water dripped on my head from the soaked leaves above.

Inhale.

Fresh clean air: the smell of life my mom used to say. The smell of green living things. The ghost of snow lingers on the wind: winter will be here soon and bury us in its blizzards, but we should be gone by then.

They'll investigate this gang and the bodies, figure out like I already have that it's the work of a copycat, catch him, and move on. I'll go back to Washington, and everything will sort itself out down in Georgia. Dad and the kids'll come up here and live with the BAU for a bit, maybe live with me in my apartment in Washington, and then go home: no big deal.

But it was.

Because, as I rounded the second corner, a dark figure leaped in front of me. Something hard and solid connects with the side of my head, and, suddenly, I have a pretty good idea of what happened to Cassie. It's then that I know that everything was not going to be alright.

Cassie was dead.

And now, so was I. It was only a matter of time…and time was not something I had a lot of.

…

I wake up in a cell. There are no windows, large fluorescent lights on the roof, like the ones you'd see in any American school. Long bulbs eliciting a harsh bright white light. There's a small uncomfortable cot to the side: army issue.

A solid metal door with a slot at the top and what looks to be a doggie door at the bottom: too small for humans but large enough for food and water to enter the room. In the back of the room is a small closet like room with a toilet, sink, and bathtub. No shower. No curtain. No door. No towels or mirror. Two rolls of toilet paper. One container of shampoo. An unopened tooth brush. A large tube of toothpaste. Clean clothes lie on the cot and a web camera watches me from above. It's at an angle to see everything going on in the main cell, but not the restroom.

_Well, _I think. _At least they've given me that much privacy._

Statistically speaking, most kids don't make it past the first twenty four hours, and, according to my watch…I've already been here about three, but, hey, I have a bathroom. That's good…right?

Carefully, I pick up the clothes: a black tank top, a black t-shirt, khaki pants, black socks. No shoes. I look down at my feet and curl my bare toes into the freezing and damp stone floor and shiver. Why did the unsub steal my shoes? That's kind of weird…

Quickly, I take a shower and change in the bathroom. They had my knife and they had shoes. So far, this isn't going well. Something thumps on the other side of my wall and I freeze in response. A silent curse travels easily to my ears and, for the first time, I notch a small, mouse sized hole cut into the solid stone.

"Hello?" My voice screams around me, reverberating off the walls and exploding in every direction. I lower my voice, "Who's there?"

"Adva?" The voice coming back at me is familiar but I can't place it. "Is that you?"

I think for a second. My mind still seems numbed and foggy as if I'd been drugged and it takes me a minute to place the voice and when I do, my heart wrenches painfully in my chest. Because she wasn't dead.

Yet.

"Cassie!"


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

We don't talk much after that. I mean, what _could_ we say? _'__Sorry you got kidnapped, better luck next time?' I_t's not exactly the pick-me-up line of the week...

"Are you okay?" Cassie decides to break the silence.

"Sure. I guess_." I mean, it's not like I'm locked in a cage where no one can find me or that no one knows I'm missing. It's not like I've been abducted or anything…oh _wait_._

"So, what's going to happen to us?"

I sigh: the inevitable, of course: death. Maybe torture. "Nothing, Cassie. We'll be fine. We'll get out of here and…and gorge ourselves on Big Macs, alright? Nothing is going to happen."

At least, nothing within our control is going to happen to us.

"Do you promise, Adva?"

I hesitate slightly before saying: "Promise. I promise, we'll make it out of here."

We sit in silence for a moment and listen to the beating of our own hearts and our lungs drawing air in and out of our bodies. How much longer until there's no sound at all? Until our hearts stop? Our lungs freeze?

"Why do you think they took us? I mean, why _us _specifically?"

Forget that, how in the world did _you_ get here? I want to ask. You vanished four hours ago—what'd they do to get an incapacitated woman onto a plane? And why bring you _here_ of all places? Why not just kill you and dump the body in a ditch something? Why go to the trouble of taking you-or me for that matter! We could lead to a possible identification that'd put them in prison for years! Why not just kill us? But I say none of this out loud: something tells me that I don't _want_ to know.

"It's got to be someone we know." My mouth is on automatic and ignores my wish for it stay shut: "Someone from school, a teacher, a student. Maybe a neighbor..."

"How do you know?"

"The poem: whoever took us knows about the poem. Did you know that last two lines of the first and second stanzas were switched? It was a warning and whoever took you knew that the second stanza was a reference to you. They knew about our stupid club…and now we're here."

Do they have my friend Clark in here too? Is he entombed in this prison as well?

And who may this person/people possible be? Who could possibly hate us this much? I was bullied, sure, but none of the bullies actually _threatened_ my life. Sure they put me in the hospital a few times…but nothing like this.

"'They'?" Cassie inquires.

"Hali was kidnapped by multiple men; I'm assuming they are part of this: it can't just be coincidence, you know? It's all…connected somehow. Might even be the same location."

"So, what do we do?" Cassie sounds more confident now. She's still scared, obviously, but less so. Must be the idea of a plan. Something solid. Something to grasp onto.

My FBI training takes over and I parrot the words that have been drilled over and over into my skull: "Staying calm is the most important thing to do. If we panic: we die. Keeping a level head can be the difference between death or survival. And we need to wait for them to make a mistake—the first chance you get, the first opportunity, run, okay?"

"What about you?"

"I've been through worse: trust me."

The words are out before I can stop them. Once they escape, there's no taking them back. I wait for outburst, the inevitable question: what could be worse? She's silent for a minute but, to my relief, decides not to ask—I don't blame her. If the situation had been reversed, I wouldn't have said a word.

Finally, she speaks, "Do you think anyone is looking for us, Adva? Do you think anyone has noticed we're gone?"

Probably not, I think.

I haven't been gone long enough for anyone to notice.

Chances are, they're still sleeping. Unaware of my absence. Ignorant of this situation. Warm beneath their blankets. Comfortable on their mattresses.

Who knows, maybe they'll see me again.

Just as the next homicide victim that they investigate.

"So, what are you wearing?" I ask to change the subject. She sighs: she's noticed.

"Probably the same thing as you: white t-shirt, khaki jeans, white socks."

_White_ shirt? Weird, are our shirt colors symbolic? White: good, black: evil? Could this be a glimpse into their intentions?

"No, I have a black shirt and socks." I murmur.

"That's weird."

"Yeah. I guess. Probably doesn't mean anything." There's no reason to worry her needlessly, right?

But, she's wrong, that's not only weird, but probably _dangerous._ White could mean that they wish Cassie to be some kind of human sacrifice; black could mean that they are most definitely going to take my life-or make my stay here a heck of a lot worse than Cassie's will be. That they see me as something evil: inhuman.

Are they perhaps, a religious radical of some kind…?

**…2 hours later**

Hotch wakes up and quickly awakens the others by knocking on their doors. He changes rapidly and moves down the stairs to grab something from the vending machine before heading out into the field. Emily and JJ jerk awake and rush to put their clothes on. Gently, Emily awakens Hali, who sits up groggily and yawns. She looks at Emily confused.

"What's going on?"

"We've got to go to work, until your family get's here, you'll have to sit in the van. Get dressed." Emily presses a wad of clothes into the girls arms and helps her stand before gently propelling her towards the bathroom.

Hali nods to her, too tired to object, "Where's Adva?" She asks when she walks out.

"Probably already down there. Are you ready?" The girl nods and follows her. The women pile into one of the vans, assuming that Adva is in the other one. Taliyah whines quietly and stays close to Hali, her brown eyes looking pleadingly up at the young girl.

Hali never notices.

They go to the crime scene, but, still, no one but Reid and Hali seems to notice their newest member's absence. He raises an eyebrow in confusion and looks back at Hali, who is sleeping quietly, her head leaning against the cool glass window. Up ahead storm clouds gather and the ground readies itself for the coming snow.

"Hotch?" The young man walks briskly up to the older man.

Hotch raises an eyebrow, "Yes, Reid?"

"Where's Adva Wolfe?"

Hotch blinks and looks around, but she's not there. "I don't know."

**…**

They go back to the hotel room and search the girls' room thoroughly and find the note: it is now noon: roughly 8 and a half.

She is _still_ missing.

"Any ideas where she went?" Hotch towers over Hali who crouches and takes a few steps back. She looks scared. He sighs and sits down on the bed in an effort to seem less intimidating-it doesn't work.

"Hali?" Reid walks over to her and put his hand lightly on her shoulder. Her big green eyes look up at him with worry. "This is very important. Has she ever done this before? Do you know what kind of places she like to go to when she goes for a run?"

"Quiet ones." She says softly. "Somewhere with trees, and flowers, and an open sky: fresh air."

"So, a park?"

Hali nods. "Yes."

Hotch looks at the young man and gives him a curt nod of approval.

"Alright. Let's try to call her first." Hotch says.

A wave of hope washes over them as Hali punches in the number, but it soon dies out when her backpack begins to ring.

"Get everyone in here. Now." The others pile in and look to their leader: "We're going to split up and go to the closest parks in the area and start looking. She may have lost track of time, gotten hurt, or possibly even kidnapped. Reid. You, Emily and Morgan will be in one group. JJ, you're with me, and Hali. Hali, bring the dog. She may be able to pick up your sister's scent. Let's move."

Taliyah leads Hotch's group to where Adva vanished. There are at least three different sets of footprints. They follow the prints to where they end at the road. She's gone. He sighs and shakes his head. JJ wraps the young woman into her arms as she dissolves into tears.

"It's all my fault!" Hali caterwauls.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

"Garcia?" Morgan speaks into his cell phone.

"This is the office of the overlord of awesomeness. What can I do for you, sugar?

"Garcia, we need any information you can pull up on that new tech kid."

"Why, what happened? Is everything okay?"

"Kid went out for a run this morning while everyone was sleeping and never came back."

"So, what, a kidnapping?"

"We aren't sure. She may have tired herself out, fell asleep on a bench, and lost track of time, but we aren't ruling out the possibility of an abduction either."

"Okay, so what exactly do you want me to look for? Just general information or something specific?"

"Anything you think would be helpful."

"Let's see here…went to school in a small town…bullied…straight A's…nothing really seems abnormal here. No misconducts, misdemeanors, always stayed in line...father in the army, mother was a paramedic..."

"Alright, keep digging. Call me if anything catches your eye, baby girl."

"Okay, love you."

"Love you too." He hangs up and sighs. His brown eyes turns to his leader and Hotch swallows. "Any ideas, Hotch?" Morgan asks.

Hotch shrugs, "We came here to investigate a series of murders. For now…" He thinks for a minute. "We'll split up into two groups. The family will be coming up soon, until then Hali, you stay with Reid."

Reid's eyes widen slightly in shock and discomfort once he realizes he's been nominated for babysitting duty, but Hotch continues quickly, allowing him no time to object.

"Emily and I will go to the first crime scene and check it out. Morgan, I want you and Garcia to gather everything you can on this girl. JJ, you handle the press and keep Adva's name out of the new reports."

Morgan phone rings and he picks it up quickly. "Yeah?"

"She went to college and clepted out of most of her courses but it says here that Gideon was one of her instructors."

"Really, for what?"

"Profiling." Garcia says with a smirk. "Guess this kid is full of hidden talents."

Morgan relays the information to Hotch. "Let's call him up here. He may be able to help us create a better profile of this kid—give some more insight into how she thinks. JJ, call him up. His vacation is going on pause. I need him here immediately."

The blond nods and quickly punches in the number.

"Do you think she's okay?" Reid asks. "Do you think this actually is kidnapping, Hotch?"

"I don't know."

Hotch's phone rings shrilly and he fishes it out of his pocket: Jack's babysitter. Walking away from the group, he put his phone to his ear and answers.

"Hello?"

"I'm sorry! I'm so sorry!"

"Calm down? What's wrong?"

"They were everywhere and they got him, Hotch! I'm sorry! I couldn't stop them! I'm so sorry!" She's breaking down, crying into the receiver.

**…**

Hooded figures race into my cell and drag me to my feet by my arms. I yell and struggle only to be kicked cruelly in the back and forced forward. No! I don't want to die! Let me go!

"Adva!"

"Cassie!" They're dragging her out too. She screams in fear and pain and they drag us down a long blindingly white hallway and force us down a rotten wooden staircase.

"You promised, Adva! You promised!" Promised, I think. What does she expect me to do: magically teleport us away to safety? Surely she knew I was trying to reassure her earlier…and that I didn't have any more control over this than she did…but how do tell a person that? I mean, really?

"Keep fighting!" I scream, my throat raw and hurting. "Get away, Cassie! Escape!"

They shove me into a dark room illuminated by a single light. The walls and floors are dirt in complete contrast to the sterile while walls and floors of the hallways. Ice and dust cover everything and a computer sits in the middle of the room: a webcam taking in everything. What's going on?

Hostage demands?

Our execution?

"Run, Cassie! Run!" I try again. But I know she won't make it. It's too late: the door has slammed shut.

"Can you find them?" A low voice mocks. "Can you save them?" The barrel of a gun slams roughly into my head and I flinch. Rivulets of blood run down my face.

"Adva?" Cassie whimpers. Her blue eyes scared, her pale freckled face caked in dirt and grim. "Adva?"

I shrug. I don't know what going on. I don't know what's happening.

"We'll be okay." I whisper. "We'll be fine."

"Do you believe that? Do you honestly believe that?"

I don't, no. Not really. But if she panics, she'll kill us both. Being calm won't keep us alive…but at least it'll give us a small sliver of a chance.

"I do believe it." I whisper before adding, "I'm sorry."

"For what?" Confusion clouds her features: confusion is better than fear but still not a very helpful emotion in this situation.

"For leaving the state and never calling you or Clark. For not saying goodbye…I'm really bad at goodbyes: said 'em too much, you know?"

"Yeah."

"You don't have long!" The menacing whisper warps into a harsh scream. "Can you find them?! Can you?!" Some from behind shoves me forward and I slam into the hard floor. A bullet rolls into the chamber of the gun and I roll quickly onto my back, my hands above my head.

"Easy." I say. "Come on, man. I'm not armed. Calm down." I stare into the person eyes—pale blue—and wince inwardly: they show no fear, no regret, no sympathy.

What have we gotten ourselves into?

After a few more minutes they leave Cassie and me alone. I'm on my feet in seconds and put my hand to my head. The bleeding is slowing down. Cassie walks over and examines it for a minute.

"It's shallow. A superficial wound. No biggie." She says to reassure me, and, although she is a nurse, I'm not really sure if I should believe her or not: I mean, I've lied to her that we'll be okay; who's to say she won't do the same to me?

"Is that right, now? They teach you all that in the sacred school of nursing, huh?" She swats my shoulder and I laugh.

"Yep, and that course is only second to one."

"And what would be the first?"

"How to be a ninja." She tackles me to the ground and roll over and over one another. Eventually, we break apart and eye each other warily.

"Temporary truce?" I offer.

She gives a brisk nod: "For now."

I wander over the computer and Cassie groans loudly. "Really, Adva? You, my socially awkward friend, have a problem. Should I call an intervention or something?"

The corner of my mouth tweaks up in a half smile at her comment.

"I can stop fixing computers any time I want," I joke, hands up in defeat. "Really," I add.

"Uh huh. Right…"

I turn back around. The whisperer/yeller guy wasn't talking to us…he was challenging someone. Someone watching us maybe? Perhaps through a webcam? I mess with the computer for a minute and sigh: nope. Not even on. A camera above us? Live stream? I look around. Nope. Someone was probably videotaping us, someone out of sight, like the speaker. The BAU will probably receive the video soon. And if it were live stream, Garcia would be all over it and send a thousand SWAT teams out way.

Are they looking for us now? Do they know I'm missing, yet?

"Adva? What are you doing?"

I look down at my hands and find that I've managed to unconsciously revive the computer.

"I'm guess I'm going to hack the FBI, Cassie."


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

I make the code into a virus like parasite that will infest Garcia's monitors. Her firewalls will attack my virus, but my message should still get through her intricate web and flash across her screen: I hope.

_Garcia_

_It's me the new kid Adva Wolfe_

_Can you track this message_

_Can you find us_

_My missing friend is here: Cassie Monroe_

_We're not dead_

_HELP_

I look back at Cassie and shrug: "This look okay to you?"

She nods and swallows. "I think so...but I'm not really a computer person so...yeah."

"Alrighty then." I press ENTER and watch as the virus leaves and goes towards the FBI headquarters. Hopefully, I won't be fired for this…or put in jail. Maybe I should have thought this through a bit more...

**…**

"Morgan! I'm getting hacked!"

"What? By who?" He yells into a phone.

"I don't know, give me a minute. Hang on." Fingers fly across the keyboard and the joyful blond smiles in triumph as she destroys the virus with a few keystrokes before a message implodes across her monitor.

"Morgan! She's alive!" Garcia shouts, her fist punching the air. "She's still alive! You've got to tell Hotch!"

"Who's alive? What's going on, baby girl?"

"That Wolfe kid, she sent me a massage. Her and her friend are okay, but they've definitely been kidnapped."

"Can you trace the message back to its source?"

"Hang on, let me see." Her eyebrows knit together, "No. No, I can't trace it."

"Alright, keep trying, okay? I've got go, baby girl. The family is touching down and I need to move them to the hotel. I'll pass this on to Hotch." The call ends and he turns his attention to Reid who's talking to Hali.

"Did you know statistically speaking, you are more likely to get struck by lightning than to be in a plane crash?" Reid says, turning his brown eyes upon his friend. Hali looks up at Reid with the _please-help-me_ look Morgan has seen so many times before from people who meet Reid for the first time. Morgan sighs and shakes his head. _The statistics never end, do they? _the older man thinks ruefully.

"Reid?"

"Yeah?"

"Stop talking."

Hali smiles gratefully and turns her attention back to the window. Any minute now her family will be here. Any minute now…

**…**

"Relax. The FBI has everything covered and we are trying our best to solve this case." JJ says to the crowd of reporters. Irritation surges in her chest. This is her least favorite part of the job: dealing with these impetuous idiots.

"What about Adva Wolfe? The young agent who disappeared? Has she been kidnapped?"

JJ blinks in silent surprise:_ how could they possibly know that?_ But she quickly pushes the thought away: "The disappearances of Adva Wolfe have neither been confirmed nor denied as a kidnapping and we working on that as well. No more questions." She presses her hand to her communicator and nods slightly before walking away. "On my way."

**…**

"We've received this package. It showed up at the hotel outside of Adva's room. It leads me to believe that this was not a chance kidnapping or a crime of opportunity. Someone has been following her and knew exactly where she was staying." Hotch says. "If she hadn't have been taken when she was running, this creep would've gotten her some other time."

"So, she was targeted?" Emily asks.

"Yes."

"But why?" Reid asks, his head cocked lightly to the side. "Why target_ her_ specifically? She's no one important, really. She fixes computers, she blends in, and she's quiet. These things don't really scream 'target'."

"Maybe a school enemy?" JJ suggests. "A bully? An old friend who feels inferior to her?"

"Or perhaps, an enemy of one of the parents." Morgan suggests. "Hurt the kids to hurt them."

"Well, yeah, but why kidnap her friend, Cassie with her? If this was some way to even the scoreboards, why take _two_ victims?" Reid asks, his hands under his chin as if in prayer before dropping the palms of his hands onto his knees, "Why bother taking more hostages and putting yourself at greater risk? If either of them escapes, it's game over for the unsub. Wouldn't it just be simpler to just take one of them?"

"Well, the family is in the next room and so is the other friend, Clark Ryann. Maybe they can shed some light on this?" Emily shrugs. "Give us a better understanding?"

"Maybe. When is Gideon supposed to be here?"

"About three hours." Morgan says quickly.

"Alright. JJ, you and I will interview the father. Reid, you and Morgan take Ryann."

…

"Mr. Wolfe, do you know of anyone who would to hurt your family? Your daughters?"

"No." He shakes his head: forty five years old, shaggy black and white hair, mustache, concerned blue eyes.

"What about Hali? Did she get into any arguments at school prior to going missing? Did she ever seem afraid of anyone? One of your neighbors, relatives, or friends? Do you remember anyone showing any suspicious behavior or taking a strange interest in either one of your kids?"

"No."

"What about Adva?" Hotch urges.

"Did she ever seem worried about something when you guys talked or wrote letters? Anyone that make her uncomfortable?" JJ adds.

"We didn't really talk that much, actually. Any contact we had had a really…formal air about it. If she were to confide in anyone, it'd probably be her friends, Cassie and Clark, or Hali."

"And why is that?"

"When she was younger, I was called into Iraq to help with the war. About two months before I was to be sent back to the States, our base was attacked and only a small handful of us escaped. We blended in with the general population and smuggled ourselves into a U.S embassy that, in turn, got us back home." Mr. Wolfe shrugs. "I guess she still expects it to be some kind of dream. Like, she'll wake up one day, and I'll still be over there, fighting for my life."

"And what about her mother?"

"While I was in Iraq, her mother cared for the children." He shrugs. "When Adva turned sixteen, her mom disappeared. She had a tendency of doing this while I was away, Adva had wrote, but never more than a week or so."

"And what did you think of that, Mr. Wolfe?"

"I didn't really believe her. She was only twelve when I left; I figured it was an over active imagination or something the kids were saying now a days, you know children: always coming up with new slang and such." He shrugged.

"So, you dismissed it." Hotch said. "She asked you for help and you shot her down."

The agents walk out of the room.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

**…**

"This poem fragment was found at the scene of the both crimes. Where the Adva-look-alike was found and this one where Cassie was taken, her home burned down. Do you know what it means?" Morgan asks the young man in front of him: 6 foot 2, curly brown hair, dark brown eyes.

"Well," The boy, Ryann, says cautiously. "That's not the entire poem." He holds a rumpled piece of notebook paper in front of him. "This is."

Tiny soldier

Such high hopes

Losing the war—hard to cope.

_Protects the heart and fights for peace_

_In the hopes that the pain will cease._

Bubbly laughter

Prone to think

Yet can't escape the toxic drink

_In the house made of stone_

_It's a prison, not a home_

Tried to fly, hit the ground

Tried to swim, stared to drown

Tortured life with tragic beginning

Strives to succeed—never winning

In the heart lies the desire

To escape and quench the fire.

"What does it mean?" Morgan asks.

"Well, the first stanza is about Adva." Ryann starts out slowly. "Her dad was a soldier in the war against Iraq and sent overseas. While he fought the war abroad, she fought a war on the home front."

"A war?" Reid looks confused. "What do you mean?"

"Her mom was sick—a lot."

"Sick?"

"Crazy."

"That didn't show up in any of her mother's medical records. Something like that would have been recorded."

"She was never tested, but it was obvious to tell that she was more than a little…off."

"Off how?" Morgan asks.

"Just…violent. One minute she'd be perfect the fine, the next she's chasing on her children through the house with a knife. She'd forget they existed, not pay any of the bills, attack her own kids…and forget it ever happened. She was constantly worried the government would take her kids away or that her kids were spies sent by the government to keep an eye on her…" Ryann shrugged. "And that freaked Adva out."

"Why didn't she ask for help?" Morgan asked. "Why not go to a teacher or an adult?"

"Because she didn't want them to go into foster care. Her mom may have been unstable, but that was only one person you had to worry about. In a foster home, there could be dozens of kids, each fighting their own wars and having their own problems. Kids that have been abused and acting upon those actions." He shrugged. "She figured it'd be better for them all too just stay where they were. If they were taken away from their mom, there was no guarantee they'd even be in the same house, or city for that matter. How could she protect them, if she wasn't there?"

"And the second stanza?" Morgan asks. He was beginning to get into this girl's head and certainly explained her aversion to physical contact.

"It's about Cassie. Her father was a violent alcoholic and her mother left them when Cassie was ten—probably couldn't stand being around the father anymore. Cassie would hide her feelings beneath her intellect and paint a mask on her face: one that was always happy. Laughing. Only Adva could really see through it."

"And that's how she knew Cassie was in danger. Because the two last lines of the first two stanzas switched. The one about Cassie in the first one…which would warn about another victim." Reid murmurs and Clark Ryann nods in confirmation.

"What about the last stanza, Clark?" Morgan asks to get them back on subject.

"It's about me." He shrugs, his brown eyes now looking at the floor. His leg bouncing nervously. "It seemed like every time I tried to do something, I fell flat on my face. I couldn't make friends and wasn't very coordinated…my parents died in a fire when I was four. So…"

"Did Adva ever have any problems at school? Anyone who didn't like her?"

"Um, yeah, actually. She was tormented by the guy names Blake Baker. He and his friends would attack her all the time: lock her in her own locker, target her during dodge ball, and even put her in the hospital a few times for broken bones...at least one concussion. There were times she'd skip days just to get a break from them."

"But, again, she didn't ask for help?"

"No. She needed some way to hide the injuries her own mother inflicted upon her. What better cover story than a local bully?"

**…**

Hotch paces back and forth. His phone is pressed to his ear but he can barely hear the words being said to him. The babysitter was not lying: Jack was truly missing. _Could this be another connection_, he can't but help to think. A way to keep the FBI off the kidnappers' tail, to steal the child of one of the agents working the case? He's been missing for _four_ hours now. Canine units have searched the area thoroughly, but the tracks end at the road. Jack was taken and thrown into a vehicle while the babysitter lay unconscious on the ground from a head wound.

How could everything fall apart so quickly?

How could they steal his _son?_

He had already lost his beloved ex-wife…was his child doomed to share in his mother's fate as well? He takes a deep breath and hangs up on the sheriff. They had had no results. No breakthroughs. As he stands here, hundreds of people, including his neighbors, and Jack's teachers, were scouring the area for the lost boy but they would not find him, Hotch knew. If the tracks ended at the road, he had been shoved into a vehicle...search parties would not effective in this situation. What he wanted to do was race home on the next available plane and shake the sitter until she told him everything that had happened. He wanted to hit something and he wanted to hit it hard.

Until it felt as bad as he did.

Until it broke.

Until it _screamed._

But, right now, they had a serial kidnapper on the loose and sensed that, if his team could find the two young women, they'd find his son as well. So he inhales deeply and slowly exhales, his fury burning just below the surface. Slowly, he opens the package that was left outside Adva's door. Inside is a CD.

Calling in the other agents they watch as he plays it on the TV. The girls are in a dark dirt room, probably underground. They are nervous but seem uninjured until Adva is slammed to the ground. But at least they were alive: terrified but living. They whispered to one another nervously but it was too quiet for the camera to pick up. A voice came on then, eerie and mocking. Daring them to find the girls. And then, at the end, Hotch's son. His hands tied behind his back, tears dripping down his face. He was sitting in a large metal chair that made the six year old seem even small than he was.

Anger burns inside Hotch's chest.

"Come find them." The choice challenges. "If you dare." The film ends but no one moves.

Morgan is the one who breaks the silence: "What just happened exactly?"


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

"So," Gideon walks up to the BAU. "I hear someone called in a miracle worker? Well, that guy couldn't show up, so I came instead." They smile weakly.

"So? What have you got so far? And what's this I hear about Jack going missing, Hotch?"

"You might want to take a seat." Hotch advised. "This may take a little while."

**…**

We've been in this place now for three days, and, with each day, our chances of escape drop lower and lower—definitely not good. For now, they've locked us back in our cells, but how long until we're thrown back into the Basement?

"Hey." I hear Cassie sit up in the cell next to mine and I imagine her looking around. "You hear that?"

I freeze and listen intently: footsteps. This can't be good.

**…**

"Hotch, I'm so sorry." Gideon's brown eyes shimmer in concern for his friend and his friend's family, but he doesn't allow himself to shed a single to tear. Tears will not keep those kids alive.

Together the team pour over the serial killings and the vanishings to find a link.

"This is different." Gideon says finally. "Look at the attack in Florida and Georgia committed by the gang. See? The scene is different: similar weapon but different MO's. In the southern U.S, the MO is power: how to solidify and keep it, like an alpha dog ruling its pack. But up here?" He looks back at the pictures. "In Kansas? The MO is different. There's no passion. No assertion of power. They grab the victim, kill them, and dump the body."

"Where in Georgia and Florida, they would use the victims against other gangs, like hostages, only killing them when their opponent didn't agree to their terms…" Reid says.

"So, we have a copycat?" JJ asks.

"No, we have bait." Gideon says softly.

"Bait?"

**…**

The footsteps draw closer. The ground screaming with each step. Someone—a small child?—is screaming.

"Let me go! I want to go! I want my daddy!"

"Shut up!" My cell door opens and a writhing child is thrown in. I lunge forward and catch him by the arm before his head smacks into the hard cement ground. He growls at me angrily and turns to bite me. I release him instantly and watch him slam painfully into the ground.

"Well, that was a stupid move." I say.

He looks up and I read pure rage in his brown eyes. "Leave me alone!"

"Alright."

I lie back down on the cot and stare up at the roof while he breathes heavily in and out, his face red with anger, tears welling up his eyes. After a few minutes he calms down. I refuse to speak to him.

"I'm sorry." He says softly.

"I know."

…

"Gideon?" Hotch asks. "What do you mean 'bait'?"

"Well, it's obvious, isn't it? For whatever reason someone wanted that kid here. These women weren't killed for any reason other than to lure the BAU to Kansas. And you delivered the girl right into the hands of the killers."

"And Jack?" Hotch growls, his eyes narrowing, "What about my son?"

"Insurance." The older man shrugs. "They have their prize and, sooner or later, we'll be closing in on them. What more incentive does a father need than to get his children out of harm's way?"

**…**

"Who are you?"

"Adva Wolfe. And you?"

"I'm Jack." I sit up slowly and we shake hands.

"Nice threads, dude." I say. He's wearing the same thing as Cassie: white t-shirt, khaki pants, and white socks. The small smiles slightly—a sad, lonely smile.

"Will I see my daddy again?" He asks. His voice soft. It's unlikely that any of us will ever see the sky again, let alone our families, but I nod anyway.

"Of course."

…

"So, what do you remember about Adva, Gideon?" Reid pushes a photo of her into the man's hands and he studies it intently.

"She was quiet—shy. A lot of my other students didn't like her and she, for the most part, ignored their existence. She slept during most of my lectures but passed the class easily." He shrugged. "I finally confronted her on it and she said that my class was boring and that I was not teaching her anything new." He smiles to himself and shakes his head. "So, I gave her the option to clept out."

"And did she?" Morgan asks.

"Yes. I gave her all the tests and she aced every single one. Of course, she'd still drop by from time to time and we'd talk about a few of the cases that I'd worked on. She told me she was going to be a computer technician…I certainly didn't expect anything like this to happen to her. She was socially awkward, sort of like Reid, and often didn't know what to say. She had trouble with people who were over emotional and avoided physical contact whenever necessary." He shrugged. "But nothing really stuck out about her besides her intelligence, and she tried really hard not to let it show. She didn't really have any enemies and isolated herself from the other students. When one got too close or started to irritate her, she'd profile them on the spot to get them to leave her alone."

**…**

"Well Jack, welcome. This is my cell. Over there is the bathroom. Up there is the camera and my associate is on the other side of the wall. So, how was your day, my man?"

"Awful."

"Well, look at the bright sight."

"What bright side?"

"Well, you're not dead yet are you?"

"Adva!" Cassie shrieks.

I sigh and roll my eyes, smirking slightly at Jack who returns my smile. I mouth 'weirdo' at him and roll my eyes again. I groan dramatically and Cassie punches the wall by my head. Jack giggles.

"You're weird!" He laughs

**…**

"So…maybe she isolated herself because of her mother. She has trouble identifying herself with other because of the extremities of her mother's personality. She couldn't trust the one person in the world who was supposed to love and accept her unconditionally and, as a result, couldn't trust other's not to harm her. She spent so long struggling to survive, she forgot how to live." Reid adds.

"So, her mom, most likely a paranoid schizophrenic, turns everything upside down. She's violent; she's scary. So, Adva struggles to keep her family safe, both from her mother and from the foster care system…so, where does she go? She can't stay home: it's too dangerous." Hotch looks out the window to watch the snow falling on the ground. "Where does a child run too when their home becomes a battle ground?"

"A friend's house?" Emily asks.

"No." Morgan says. "Clark Ryann lived in a foster home and went to Adva's home when things got too dangerous there. Cassie Monroe's father was a violent alcoholic…both place would be too dangerous to go, especially with a bunch of younger kids."

"She ran to a park." Reid speaks up suddenly after a moment of silence elapses Morgan's comment. "Whenever she got irritated or worried, Hali said she ran outside—to be with nature. A place with trees, and flowers, and an open sky to see the stars and clouds, a place with fresh air…if they lived in Georgia, then, chances are, they lived in a rural area. She would have run to the forest to escape."

"Maybe a clubhouse, then?" Emily suggests.

"Let's go ask."


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

**Took a break for Labor day but am back now. Please review.**

Adva's dad had made them a club house before he had left for war: one main room, three bedrooms, a small kitchen, and outhouse—each room no more than 10 feet by ten feet.

"Alright. Reid and I will check out the club house and interview teachers and neighbors to get into her head. Has Garcia traced that message yet?"

"She's doing what she can," JJ says.

"Could Hali or perhaps Mr. Wolfe come with us to find this 'clubhouse'?" Reid inquires, giving his classical puppy-dog look. "It could be next to impossible otherwise if it's well hidden."

**…**

Footsteps echo down the hallway and I flinch as food is kicked in through the doggie door: two slices of ham, two biscuits, two bananas, two halves of an orange, and two water bottles. I grin and the kid (Jack...?) smiles back weakly.

Last night (was it night?) I had given him the cot and slept on the freezing cement floor. If that wasn't bad enough, I had to wake him up (twice) because he kept crying in his sleep and whispering 'mommy' all night. I'm already a hopeless insomniac, being an incredibly light sleeper is just a perk.

"Trade you my ham for your biscuit." I offer with a wide yawn.

He smiles. "You're on, grandma."

"Hey, bro'. Come at me." I pass over the ham and accept the biscuit. "I'm _fabulous,_ okay? Like, you don't even know, alright?" We stare at each other before bursting into fits of laughter.

I can almost sense Cassie rolling her eyes in the cell next door. "That's what they all say." She responds.

We're quiet while we eat and I find myself taking quick glances at the camera on the ceiling. Is anyone watching us? Is it a type of surveillance they're monitoring us through or are they live streaming it the BAU…?

No, scratch that.

Garcia would have found us by now if they were live streaming. Must be for surveillance, then.

"So, what now?" Cassie asks.

"Want to talk about our place in this crazy mixed up world we call the universe?" I ask with a wink to Jack who grins.

"And you wonder why you don't have a boyfriend."

"What? Why?"

She sighs and I can almost feel her shaking her head in silent shame. "Once a geek, always a geek," she murmurs before speaking up. "Nothing, Adva. Nothing at all…"

**…**

Hali goes with Reid and Gideon to show them the way to the club house. She stops just outside the doorway and looks at the rickety building with a mixture of sorrow and shame. Gideon gives her a crooked smile and puts his hand on her shoulder. She doesn't smile back.

By now, it's worn down and hollow looking.

Empty.

Desolate.

Frail.

Inside, the furniture is sparse: a small wood burning stove, an old couch, and broken wooden table covered in a worn and dusty quilt. Each room has two cots (except one—probably Adva's—that contains only one), a few quilts for warmth, a pillow, and some personal effects: Toy horses and posters for Hali; barbie dolls and just about anything pink for Roni; toy cars and baseball cards for Nate, Adva's little brother.

"Why does this room have two cots if she only has one brother?" Gideon asks, his head tilted slightly to the side.

"The blankets are folded on it, pillow looks fairly old—used. Someone definitely slept here…Adva?" Reid asks.

Gideon shakes his head. "No. She has her room. She would've checked in on her siblings but never would have stayed in their room longer than what was appropriate."

"Maybe the unsub? If they have some sort of fixation on her, chances are they may have come here. To watch her in her natural habitat, outside of the mask she wore in front of the general public. Maybe a friend…" They move to the next room.

A Native American knife, bow and arrows, and mounds of books for Adva.

Her room is a mixture of tidy and messy. The bed is made—blankets and sheets tucked in military style. A small toy wolf stands vigil next to her pillow, and a small Safire carpet in on the floor: unruffled. The books are next to the bed, each one pointing out a in a different direction: an OCD person's nightmare. Pictures of her family, friends, and nature hang crookedly on the wall as if on purpose.

"She cared about her family." Reid says. "Nature became a sort of obsession with nature: edible foods, types of animals, types of plants both toxic and nontoxic."

"She wasn't obsessed with nature," Gideon admonishes. "She was trying to figure out how to survive. No food means that nourishment has to come from a different source and, in this case, that happened to be the forest. But there aren't any pictures of her mother hanging up." He says softly and puts his weathered palm against a photograph.

Reid pulls out his phone. "Hey, Garcia? Any ideas where Wolfe's mother is? A mental institution…? A relatives house…?"

"One sec, sugar…okay, says here she vanished years ago without a trace. Police assumed it was a kidnapping but…no evidence to support it."

"Any idea where she is now? Could you locate her? She may have some insight."

"Sorry, Reid: I've got nothing, but I'll keep looking…No! No, no, no, no, no!"

"Garcia! What's wrong!"

"Some idiot just picked the wrong girl to hack, that's what! Hang tight, Reid!" Furious typing can be heard from the other side of the line before Garcia finally slams her hands down in frustration. "Oh, no…"

"What's going on? Garcia?"

"I'm picking up a live stream. I can see Adva."

"Is she okay?"

"Yeah. She seems to be alright: thinner and paler, sure, but alive...and there's a small boy in the room: Jack, maybe?"

Reid lets out a sigh of relief. "Can you follow the video-feed back to its source?"

"Already trying and…nope. Sorry, Reid. This guy has this thing routed through so many networks, it'd take _years_ to follow the thread."

**…**

"Do you miss her?"

"Who?"

"Your mom?" Cassie asks.

It's late, and Jack has fallen asleep on the cot. My heart wrenches for the small boy when I think of him never seeing his family again, but sentiment is a dangerous thing. Better to bury it deep where it can't claw its way to the surface because it only brings trouble.

I sigh and then shrug. "I don't know. Sometimes I do…and sometimes I'm glad she's gone."

"Whatever happened to her?"

"I don't know. She had a tendancy of disappearing for weeks at a time. I was sixteen and she just vanished. A week passed…and then a month…she never came back."

"Did you miss her?"

"I miss the person she was before she got sick." I think for a moment. "Do you miss your dad? I mean…the man your dad was…before the alcohol. Before the violence?"

"All the time."

"Well…at least I'm not the _only one_ who's crazy huh?" I smirk up the camera, daring whoever is watching to come down here and enter my cell-because I'd break their neck without a second's hesitation. I'm so tired of this! All this waiting and formalities and dodging around the obvious!

Either we escape or we will die.

And escape sounds like a much better option.

**…**

"What are they doing?" Gideon asks. "On the video?"

"Just talking. I'm recording it. I'll send it to your laptop later."

"Thanks, Garcia." Gideon hangs up. "Ready to go to her high school?"

"Not really, but if we have to," Reid shrugs, "We may as well get it over with."

**…**

"So, you work with the FBI, huh?"

"What?"

"The FBI, they're your employers?"

"Nah, I work where ever and whenever I can. I fix computers at schools, police stations, minor businesses, but no FBI people. Sorry."

"You seem like an agent though. Hardcore. Quiet. Mysterious."

"But don't you have to be _cool_ to work the government?" I joke and Cassie laughs quietly. I am a lot of things: cool is definitely not one of them.

"Maybe you could be a profiler. I mean…you have a decent aptitude at reading people. You can tell someone's life story with only spending ten minutes with them."

"Well, sure, but I'm antisocial. Being a profiler would mean engaging with people on a team to compare and contrast who did the crime as well at talking to suspects and witnesses…" I trail off. "Doesn't really look like me. And I'd have to carry a gun, be available to work 24/7…it'd get old. Quickly."

"And there is evidence B."

"What?"

"For why you don't have a boyfriend: you're such a downer."

I roll my eyes. "Whatever. So…when are you going to tell me who he is?"

"'He'?" Cassie sounds nervous.

"You're engaged—you're wearing a ring. So…who is he?"

"Are you sitting down?" Cassie asks and frown and glance at the camera for a second and then look at the wall, imagining Cassie behind it, twirling her hair round and round her slender fingers—a nervous habit she's had since forever.

"Yeah…" I say slowly, unsure of where this is going.

"Okay." Cassie inhales deeply. "It's Blake. Blake Baker."

**…**

Reid's phone rings: it's Garcia.

"Hey what-?"

"Now she's exploding! She's going all over that Cassie chick!"

"What? Why?"

"Cassandra Monroe is engaged to Adva's childhood tormentor."

"Oh…" Reid's eyebrows life in surprise.


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13**

It's dark in the room: they've gotten into the habit of shutting the lights off, throwing up in pitch black, for about twelve hours a day. The camera stays on, its burning red light burning a hole into my chest. It's cold. Ice forms on the walls and water droplets cover the hard floor: damp and cold were never a good combination. They had given us plain and thin hoodies yesterday: Cassie's and Jack's jackets are white and mine is black.

They don't protect against the cold.

Not really.

Something angry and fast announces itself in the hallway: footsteps. Something is terribly wrong. They only come to throw food in…something is bad is going to happen; I just know it.

I knock lightly on the wall to alert Cassie and wake Jack up and push him carefully into the bathroom whispering: "_stay quiet"._

As is _quiet _will keep the monsters away if they seek his life.

If they demand his death.

He sniffles, but says nothing. I hug the child and move carefully to sit on the cot, every muscle ready to attack should the door open.

"Look alive." I whisper. _It's about to begin._

My door slams open and rough hands bite into my forearm before I have the chance to react, and they drag me angrily to my feet with I squirm and writhe in the grasp. Then I'm shoved out the door and jostled down the painfully white hallway. For a few moments, I'm blinded by the harsh stabs light that assault my eyes but they don't wait for me to adjust. Why should they?

"Walk." I'm hurled forward, stumbling to catch my balance.

"Adva!" Cassie yells and I hear Jack join her in calling to me.

So, they didn't grab them too, then. Why? Why me? Why am I singled out in the middle of the night? Why am I given different colored clothes?

"I'll be okay!" I yell back, my heart dropping. Will _I be okay? Is this the last time I'll ever see them? Ever see anything?_

"Be back soon, alright?" I scream, but I'm not sure if they heard me or not.

Because I don't hear anyone yell anything back.

**…**

"Hey!" Garcia calls Hotch.

"Find anything?"

"Maybe. Turns out, Cassie's fiancé also disappeared two weeks before she was kidnapped; he and Adva had a lot of problems both at and outside of school. I've been looking at credit cards and he was in Kansas the day Adva went missing. The computer says the ATM he accessed was only ten minutes away from your hotel."

"So, now we have a possible unsub."

**…**

I'm thrown into a room that's illuminated by a single flickering blub. A knife is pressed into my hand and I wrap my hand reflexively around the handle. The ones who drag me here exit the room, locking the heavy metal door behind them.

"Go ahead." My captors say from the other side of a wall of bullet proof glass. "Kill him."

"Why?"

"Kill him."

I look carefully around the room and see who they are referring to: a young man, around twenty years of age, Caucasian. My blood freezes. I know him. My hand clenches the handle tighter.

**…**

"Alright, Hotch. We've got just about everything we can here. Boarding the plane now. See you guys in a few hours." Gideon says.

"Do you think it could really be him? I mean, I know he and his pals bullied her and all, but that's a bit of a leap."

"I don't know. His mother died a few months ago, that could be the Stressor that set him off. So, he looks for an easy target. Adva never fought back, always hid in the background…be easy enough to kidnap."

"But how'd he even know she was in Kansas?"

"Coincidence?" Gideon shrugged. "I don't know, but we'll find out."

…

_Kill him. Kill him!_

I don't want to.

No anymore.

I inhale and force my hand to fly open, the knife clattering to the ground. With my black sock covered foot I kick the handle and send the blade spinning away from me.

"No."

My voice sounds like it's coming from someone else. Someone strong. Someone brave. Someone who is a _complete_ and total _idiot_: who in their right mind antagonizes the person who could end their life?

Apparently, me.

"Kill. Him." Ice crawls up my spine and I cross my arms defiantly over my chest, eyes blazing, nostrils flaring, and stubbornly lift my chin high: _make me._

**…**

"Find everything you can on Blake Baker, Garcia. Send to my computer." Gideon says and sits back in his chair. Reid yawns and leans against the window. "You alright, Reid?"

"Yeah…just tired."

"So, what do you think about all this?"

"About what?"

"Well, this kid obviously lied on the IQ test we gave her, has a possibly severely schizophrenic mother, like you, and, like you, was bullied in school. Seems like you guys share a lot."

Reid shrugs. "She never talked about, and her past is her business…so, I never asked."

Gideon smiles ruefully before turning to look out the window, his eyes tearing up slightly: "Her past is going to get her killed."

**…**

I'm thrown back into my cell hours later. My ribcage screams and shoulder complains angrily from where I fell on it upon entering, but, I think I'm…

I can't think.

Everything seems fuzzy: wrong somehow. My chest hurts, a single flickering flame painfully engulfing my chest. I gasp and try to draw in air…but it's not working. Something is wrong. Somethng is horribly wrong. A hot liquid is coming from my head…and I can't get up from where I lie in the ground. Looking around I'm met with the bone chilling realization that Jack is not in the room.

They took him away.

They told me I'd regret it if I didn't end his life.

I told them I'm a nerd, not an executioner.

Now Jack was probably dead and, if he wasn't, he would soon be wishing he was. I was wrong when I said I wasn't an executioner: I just murdered that little boy.

"Adva? Is that you?"

I open my mouth and try to speak, but I can't. I can't breath!

"Adva!"

I elbow the wall and force a lungful of air into my lungs.

"Are you okay?" Her voice echoes faintly. Drifting father and farther away. "Adva…"

What's wrong with me?

…

They search his apartment, go through his things, and call his relatives. So far, it's almost as if Blake Baker never existed.

"It's almost like this guy fell off the face of the planet!" Emily grumbles.

"Just keep looking." Hotch orders. His son's life depended on them catching this lunatic. Until he held his boy in his arms, he would not rest until he found Jack. "There's got to be something here."

Morgan sighs and looks at Reid who shrugs helplessly.

"Maybe it wasn't Baker." Reid states. "Maybe Baker is another victim. I'm mean, asides from Jack, all three are from the same high school, the same country, and had broken family structures."

Gideon shrugs. "But if he's around, unsub or not, he may still have valuable information."

**…**

My head is pounding and I sit up carefully, dried blood plastering my hair. What happened?

"Hello?" I try. My throat is sore as if I'd been screaming and my ribs and shoulder ache…but nothing feels broken. "Hello?"

"Adva! You're okay! You're alive!" Something thumps next to my head on the other side of the wall and I can imagine Cassie leaning the palms of her hands against the icy surface, her face smiling widely.

"Of course, I'm okay." I answer automatically. "I'm Batman; you, like, don't even know, okay?"

She laughs and I can hear a small child giggling next to her. "Yeah, girl, I'm pretty sure you're not Bat_man_, alright?"

"Hey, it'd be the perfect cover—I'm just saying…so, what happened to me?" I say quietly. My head spins and my stomach pitches violently.

"I don't know. They came back and threw in the room. You fell and started mumbling something. It sounded like you couldn't breath or whatever and you…you just started screaming: I'm not sure why."

"Weird." I say softly and force my rubbery legs to stand. Something solid sits heavily in my sleeve and I pull it out slightly.

It's a knife.

Covered in blood.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14**

They get back to the hotel and collapse into their beds. Snow is falling heavily outside. Reid wonders dully if Adva would like the snow. If she'd laugh and initiate a snowball fight or hide indoors where it was warm and where it was safe. And he wondered if she was okay, and whether or not she was still alive.

From going to her home and that old clubhouse, he could almost see fragments of his own life playing out before him.

An insane mother.

An absent father.

Unrelenting packs of bullies who tormented him because of his intelligence. If he were her, he'd probably have been dishonest when answering the IQ questions as well. Better to appear average then risk being different.

Reid could vividly see his mother waking him up in the middle of the night to take him somewhere 'safe'—a place she said was far away from the government and their evil ways. They'd then live in the streets until her sanity came back and she wearily carried him home whispering, "I'm sorry," over and over again. Despite her apologies, it would only repeat in the future, each time getting progressively worse and longer with each episode.

He sighs and rolls over, a slight headache boiling behind his eyelids. Sometimes, he really hated being a Profiler, but not even a normal person could miss the acts of violence that had clearly assaulted that home the Wolfe's had lived in: bullets in the walls, knives stabbed into the doors, broken pieces of furniture.

His mom had been crazy—but she had never tried to kill him.

**…**

I had the blade carefully in my sleeve and glance up at the camera, willing it to keep my secret. I don't remember what happened, not really. I remember getting dragged into a room, the knife in my hand, a young man tied to a chair in front of me, his green eyes wide and scared.

But I hadn't killed him…right?

"Adva? What's wrong?" My knees buckle under me and I lean against the wall.

"I don't know." My voice sounds choked, force. A painful lump sticks stubbornly in my throat and no amount of swallowing will erase it. My eyes burn and my vision blurs: I'm crying. I haven't cried since I was a kid! What's wrong with me?

"Adva?"

"I don't know!" I whine, my voice catching as I begin to sob. "I don't know."

**…**

"We've got another video?" Reid grumbles, looking down at the CD case by his feet. "Why? A push in the right direction?"

"Probably a taunt, more likely." Hotch says and Gideon nods in agreement.

_"__Look at me, look at me; you'll never find me. You'll never figure it out."_ Gideon says, pretending to be the kidnapper and then sighs and shakes his head. "We're running on a timetable. He's getting impatient."

_"_So, they're still alive?" JJ asks.

"Let's find out." Hotch says and put the CD into the TV.

Adva and Jack are sitting on a hard cement ground, playing cards in their hands. Hotch smiles weakly with relief to see his son laughing at something the new techie had said. She had blood plastered to the top of her head from what appeared to have been a shallow wound and her hands shook slightly, probably from fear of the unknown, as she looked at her cards.

"Got any…twos?" She asked and he shook his head slightly, a large smile infecting his face. A FBI agent gets kidnapped, and the first thing she does is play Go Fish with a young child. Well, at least she was keeping him from worrying, Hotch thinks ruefully before shaking his head slightly, a smile curling at the corner of his mouth: his son was alive and, at the moment, was safe. Who cared about how FBI agents were supposed to act?

She draws a card from the deck and then disc freeze and skips. Now it's dark in the cell. Jack sleeps quietly on the cot and Adva thumps her head lightly into the wall. Why? Is she agitated? Worried?

"So, what have you got?" Cassie asks. "Profile wise?"

Hotch and every other agent in the room perks up and, out of the corner of his eye, Hotch sees Gideon smirk slights in preparation of Wolfe's response.

"Six men at most: Hali's count was off. All are Caucasian and in their early twenties. The leader is a severe paranoid schizophrenic who has fantasies about the government wanting to end the world or whatever—you remember the speaker from the basement room, right? One has bipolar with wild and unpredictable mood swings, a bad limp on the right leg—probably a childhood injury—and is then there is one who brings the food—I think he's a little slow."

"And the others?"

"One has a severe mood disorder and the other one has a split personality…I'm not sure about the last...a psychopath, maybe?"

"So, where are we? Any ideas?"

"Probably still in Kansas, but, really, we could be anywhere that has snow in the winter: most likely we're in a rural area. I don't think I was unconscious for more than a few hours; so, I'd like to say that we're not too far away from where I was taken…but I don't really know one way or the other."

"Why snow? We have no windows to see outside, and yet, you're convinced there's snow: why?"

"The ice on the walls."

"O, okay...so...what is like?"

"What's what like?"

"You know, working for the FBI?" Cassie says.

Adva sighs, "How many times do I have to tell you? I just fix computers for varying companies, schools and universities, and the occasional individual: no FBI—sorry." Reid tenses. Cassie talking about Adva's job is more than dangerous: it's suicide. Talking about Adva being a federal agent could get them both killed sooner rather than later because they'd be considered high risk prisoners: better to dump the bodies than risk witnesses.

"Well, it's their loss." Cassie sounds unconvinced.

"Sure. I guess so." Adva yawns. Adva was doing a very good job of pretending to be bored, but Spencer could see her hand trembling slightly in the darkness: she knew the risk.

"Any ideas for escape, Wolfe?"

"I _had_ seven."

"Had?"

"They were only theoretically possible with two people and no dependents-so, five were immediately abandoned."

"But, you still have two ideas to get away, though?"

"They're incredibly risky, so I have to go through and make alterations to the original ideas…but yeah, I guess."

"Sounds complicated. Makes you miss high school, huh?"

"I wouldn't go that far." Adva winces slightly, probably remembering her days getting used as a human punching bag, "But I think I'd definitely risk eating cafeteria food if it meant we could get out of here."

"Man, no need to get suicidal on me, girl." The two women chuckle softly and Adva yawns.

**…**

"So, they're alive." Morgan says and he sits back, arms crossed in front of his chest. "It looks like they're in a basement of some kind—cement walls and flooring," he shrugs, "But that isn't a lot to go on."

Reid sighs. "Well, what about abandoned buildings in rural areas? They can't risk being in the city, not with three prisoners. It'd be too dangerous have them near a large population—to many witnesses and things that can go wrong. Like Adva said, they probably aren't that far away…maybe we can search for abandoned buildings in rural areas within three to four hours driving distance to the hotel?"

Taliyah shifts next to Reid and puts her large block head on top of his knee. Her large brown eyes look up at him pleadingly as if to say 'find my human. I miss my person'.Reid smiles down at her and strokes her head gently with his long narrow fingers. He could see why Wolfe liked this dog so much: she was really expressive and, despite her massive size, she was a kitten trapped in dog's body.

Morgan nods: "Sounds good. I'll see if Garcia can get started on that right away."


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15**

"Let's go." It's the guy with the mood disorder and the other one with the split personality. Hopefully they'll throw us into the basement and not our graves.

I'm dragged to my feet the pulled roughly into the hallway. The knife still rests heavily in my sleeve. I breathe deeply in an effort to calm my nerves: it's not working. Cassie and Jack are being treated the same way and we are all pushed roughly into the basement: the man who they wanted me to kill earlier is gone.

Is he dead? Did I kill him?

The door slams shut behind us and I run to the computer.

_/Garcia_

_/It's me, Wolfe, _

_/Cassie is here, too, and some kid named Jack_

_/We are okay so far…_

_/Can you trace this?_

_/Can you find us?_

_/Please do not give up on us!_

I send it halfheartedly. No one responded to the last message: who's to say they'll even get this one? I'm wasting my time. I need to find an escape route before they get back.

**…**

"Hotch! I got another message!" Garcia yells through the phone line.

"Can you trace it?"

"I'm trying."

Is it from Wolfe?"

"It looks like it."

"Can you send a message back?"

"I think so."

**…**

I wait impatiently. Cassie marches back and forth across the length of the room and Jack sits quietly on the floor, watching our activities with a bored look on his face. I blink and turn back to the screen.

"I've got something!" I say and Cassie and Jack run to my side and read the message with me. I smile widely: Garcia got it. She got my message!

_/Wolfe_

_/Glad to hear you are okay_

_/Can you see outside? Are there any defining characteristics?_

_/Buildings, houses, road signs…?_

_/How is Jack: is he okay?_

_/Tell Jack that his Dad loves him and that everything_

_/ will be okay._

_/We will find you._

"Do you see that?" Jack is smiling widely. "My dad is going to find us! We're going to get out!" I hug the small boy tightly, but who the heck is his dad and how is going to help us?

_/Both your family and Clark Ryan are safe_

_/Oh, and Reid says hi, Adva_

I smile at that. Reid said hi! That's so awesome!

_/And Cassie's daughter, Rose, is doing just fine_

_/Her neighbor is watching her._

_/She misses her mommy, but she's okay_

I shoot a questioning glance at Cassie but she doesn't seem to notice me. What? Daughter? Cassie had a daughter? Well, I guess that's what I get for not talking to her for three years: I get left out of the information loop.

But still…it feels like I've been…betrayed somehow.

Oh, well.

_/We are having trouble tracing this back to the original source._

_/It goes through too many networks to pinpoint._

_/But we won't give up on you guys. Ever._

_/Stay strong; we will come for you._

_/Hang in there kids. We are sending out our search-lights_

_/It shouldn't be too long until you see them._

_/Just don't give up!_

My heart droops slightly. They didn't know where we were…but this was progress at least. We established communications, they know we're missing, and they are trying to find us.

But, will it be in time?

I start writing a new message and hope it's them and not the kidnappers receiving it:

_/Awesome!_

_/Glad to finally hear from you guys_

_/Took you long enough!_

_/Just kidding_

_/How's Taliyah doing? _

_/There are no windows to look outside_

_/But there might be another way:_

_/There's a hole up by the roof_

_/If I can climb the beam I may be able to see out._

Garcia then tells me that Reid has taken over caring for Taliyah…apparently, large dogs freak my dad out. Who knew, right? Bombs and violence are okay, but a Service Dog is the one that gives him nightmare. Okay, then…

But, at least, she was doing alright: still eating and stuff. Reid was walking her every day and Garcia said he even played with her a little. They'd play fetch and tug-a-war when Reid thought no one was looking. She said it was almost as if the two were joined at the hip: she followed at his heels, never letting him out of sight for long.

And then they told me to be careful to not do anything stupid.

Too bad they didn't know that stupid was my middle name.

So, I climbed up the beam. Cassie helped Jack send messages to Garcia to relay to his father and she looked at me nervously as I scaled the rotting plank, but she didn't complain.

"No, no buildings, just snow and trees. There's a large wooded area—a forest, maybe—and what looks to be a road going to the right of it. Our building is in a clearing…but…I don't se anything that gives any idea as to where we are."

Cassie sighs. "Well, it was worth a try."

Would she still be saying that is she knew I had a knife up my sleeve? Would she still be saying that if I told her that I knew how we could get out and that we could escape through the roof and disappear into the forest. If we run far enough, we're bound to hit a city, and I know how to survive in the wilderness…that's where I lived for years. How hard could it be? We could escape! We can get away!

All we need are supplies: warmer clothes, a few water bottles, a little food…then they won't need to find us, we'll find them.

**…**

"What's this?"

"Garcia? What's wrong?" Hotch asks. His chest feels tight and it's slightly difficult to breath. His son was safe but it had been a bittersweet moment. They could write messages, but who was to say it was even them? Who was to say those messages weren't some sick psychological torture the kidnappers were using?

"I'm being hacked. It looks a live feed." Garcia says.

"What's happening?" Reid asks. "In the live feed? What are you seeing?"

Taliyah, sensing the tension in the room, jumps to her feet, her hackles raising her hackles slightly in irritation. Her nose flares angrily as she tastes the air for danger. Reid grabs her collar and gets her to sit down.

"It's alright," He murmurs, kneeling down beside the large canine and she buries her face in his shoulder and she strokes her back before turning back to the BAU team.

"Hang on, I'll send it to the laptop." Garcia says and they crowd around the screen like teenagers to a schoolyard fight.

"Dirt walls, dirt floor, a single light bulb…are they in a root cellar?" Reid asks. "Maybe they're at a farm somewhere."

"Reid, there are thousands of farms in Kansas." Emily says with a sigh. "This is getting us nowhere."

They turn back to the video.

_Adva is pacing the length of the room. Jack and Cassie and sitting on the floor and tossing a rock back and forth like catch._

_"__Hello children." A woman's voice._

_Adva had gotten it wrong. There were more people than she had originally anticipated. The three freeze. Cassie's and Adva's eyes go wide and every muscle in Wolfe's body visibly tenses._

Reid's eyebrows furrow in concentration: the girls knew this woman. Who was she? And why were they so afraid of her?

_"__Why, hello Cassandra. How's your father doing?"_

_Cassie says nothing and the woman cleverly stays just out of sight of the camera so the BAU team can't get a good look at her._

Reid had never seen Adva more afraid—not even on her first day in the BAU. She had been nervous but composed. But now? Now the girl was terrified out of her mind; she looked she was about to run through the wall. Whoever the woman was, she and Adva definitely had a history of some kind. But what?

"Child abuse maybe?" He whispers quietly.

_"__What about you?" The woman's voice turns cold and Adva finches as the woman's attention switches to her. "Are you enjoying your betrayal?"_

_Adva says nothing. Cassie inches slowly towards Jack and stand firmly between Hotch's son and the monster that has invaded their dark dungeon._

The woman laughs: harsh and grating, a sound that turns Reid's insides to ice. He wants to wrap Adva in his arms and tell her that'd everything was going to be okay. That the woman would never lay a finger on her…but he can't do that. In reality, the rules don't work that way. Besides, what would see in him anyway?

_"__You thought you could hide? You thought you could take them all away from me?" The goons enter to the room and suddenly Cassie and Jack are being dragged away. This snaps Adva out of her trance. She darts forward to save her friends only to be thrown harshly to the ground. A cruel and calculated blow to the ribs sends her spinning away._

_"__Oh, no." Reid can almost hear the cold smile forming on the woman's features. "You're not going to get away ever again."_

_A bullet whisks past the girl's head and the screen goes black._


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16**

"You stole what mattered from me: now I'll take everything from you!" Her threat slices through the air and sinks heavily into my bones.

**…**

Hours later I'm thrown across the room. My feet stumble uncertainly on the ground. A hard metal door slams shut and strong hands catch me as I begin collapse.

"Adva? Adva are you okay?" The voice sounds familiar, female, but I can't place who it is at the moment. My mind feels scattered, a dulled blade trying to hack away at enlightenment.

"Adva!"

The voice is drifting farther away and I can't stay awake. My head throbs and my thoughts are scattering and jumping together into one disorganized haze. A veil of red cotton separates me from the speaker as she screams my name again and starts to shake my shoulder.

"Wake up…wake up, Adva…" Whoever it is that is speaking is drifting farther and farther away: a silent whisper being ripped away by the hurricane of unconsciousness.

**…**

I wake up and look around. Cassie is sleeping on the floor of the basement with Jack curled into her side, tears shining on his cheeks. Why am I not in my cell? Why am I in here?

Slowly, I force myself to my feet. The room twirls wildly about me like a carnival ride on crack. My stomach pitches violently and I swallow back vile. This isn't good: they're breaking the pattern, the routine. That must mean something bad is about to happen and soon.

"Cassie?"

**…**

"Morgan! The feed is back up!" Garcia yells into the phone, her fist punching the air.

"Alright, can you stream it to us again, baby girl?"

"Hang on."

**…**

"Cassie?" I'm down on my knees and shaking her shoulder weakly. "Cassie are you alright?"

She moans and her eyes flicker slightly before opening widely.

"You're okay!" And then she's suffocating me, her arms wrapping painfully around my shoulders, pinning my arms to my sides. I am okay, but for how long?

**…**

"Guys, they're back!" Morgan yells and turns the laptop so that everyone can see it.

_Cassie laughs deliriously with relief and Jack walks over sleepily. Adva smiles weakly at him and turns to Cassie._

_"__Did that really happen earlier, Cassie? I mean…I wasn't, like, seeing things…was I?"_

_"__Yeah, Adva: she was real." Cassie says lightly and Adva hangs her head sadly._

_"__I don't know whether I should be relieved or disappointed."_

_"__You never told me she was that bad."_

Reid sits forward and listens carefully: maybe they can give him and the others some clue as to who that woman was. This might be just enough help the BAU locate them.

_"__It's easier to keep a dark secret than to tell someone who could destroy your world with a single word." Adva shrugs. "If I had told you, you could have told everyone just how bad it really was for us at home, and then what would happen, you know? Besides…how I was supposed to know it even get this bad, right?"_

_"__But, Adva—!"_

_"__Look, what does it matter now? What's done is done and I got out, okay? I'm sorry this happened and all…but I didn't know she would ever do something like this, Cassie: really. I figured, when she left, that was it. She disappeared and that was that. She was out there, somehow, destroying someone else's life…or dead. How I supposed to know?"_

_"__What did she mean when you said you stole something from her?"_

_"__I wouldn't let my siblings near her: ever. She must have seen that as a sign of theft and, when we hid in the forest to escape, she would never follow us. She figured the forest was some deep and dark evil: walk in and you're dead. So, because I could enter and 'stole' her children and dragged them into it…"_

_"__You were evil."_

_"__Therefore I was something to be destroyed and hated."_

_"__But she's your mom, Adva…doesn't that mean anything to her—to you? What about family? A 'united force against the world'?"_

_"__She stopped being my mom when my father left. She stopped being my mom when she put a gun to my head and pulled the trigger. When she attacked my family, over and over again. She's not family: she's a monster, Cassie. Her illness has completely and totally captured her mind…what it matter if we are genetically related if her brain is raging a war against me? She's not my mom. Not anymore."_

The BAU freeze and Reid can already see silent tears forming in Emily's eyes, but she'll never let them drop. Hotch and Morgan swallow and Gideon looks away from the monitor, too overwhelmed by Adva's words and sincerity to even look at her.

"Well…maybe we can start poking around." Reid says softly and every eye turns to him. He swallows uncomfortable before going on. "If they are changing up the routine, those kids are in serious danger." He shrugs, "Maybe Garcia can look into the mother more. Check for credit cards she's used and…stuff. We can interview people around town and at the local EMS Station to see if a woman that looks like her comes to town a lot…I'm sure Mr. Wolfe, Adva's father could provide a picture we could use…"

"Nice thinking, Reid." Hotch appraises the young profiler. "Let's get to it." Everyone stands quickly. "Morgan get Garcia to start looking up what she can on the mother—see if she's been anywhere in the area, any relatives who live here, any cash withdrawn from ATM's." Morgan nods to Hotch. "Reid, you, Emily, and JJ start looking for abandoned buildings and barns within a three mile radius of our hotel—somewhere near a forest: get local law enforcement to help if you have to."

Their plan was shaky at best, Reid knew, but it was better than nothing. At least now they had something to go on: something to do with their time besides thinking up possible profiles for multiple unsubs, staring at the walls in preparation of waiting for a message or a video, or interviewing the already distraught family of Adva's. Reid hoped they got those kids back safe.

…

"Did you miss her?" Cassie asks and I shrug.

"I miss the person she used to be." I say quietly. "I miss the woman who taught me the constellations and sang to me when I was scared. I miss the woman who laughed at everything and feared nothing. The lady who danced with no rhythm and would die to protect her family…but she's not there anymore. Since she was never diagnosed with mental illness, she was never medicated. So, she went from one emotional extreme to the next."

"Are we going to die?" Jack squeaks: sis brown eyes sad and fearful. I smile and can already feel the tears filling my eyes and the lie burning at the back of my throat.

"No, Jack. Remember…?" I swallow a little to quench the flame of my guilt: I've never been a very good liar. "You dad is going to save us, right?"

He nods but looks unconvinced. "Right," he parrots. "My daddy will come save us."

…

That night I stare up at the roof and sigh. We have no supplies but, if we stay here, we'll die. It's time to run. It's time to escape.


	17. Chapter 17

**Chapter 17**

The night is black and the white snow shimmers in the darkness: a thousand icy diamonds glittering. I climb up first and watch as Cassie and Jack follow me up. We drop carefully onto the ground and stand there, shivering in the cold.

Now what?

Cassie starts walking carefully around the perimeter of the building. She looks back at him and grins, "Found it!" She whispers.

I cock my head lightly to the side in confusion: _'found' _what exactly?

A penguin?

"Come on, guys! I've got our ticket out of here!" She whispers. Jack and I glance at each other and shrug; well, we're dead men walking anyway: what've we got to lose? Seriously.

Our footsteps crunch loudly in the hardened snow andI flinch inwardly. Any minute now and they'll be upon us like grizzles feasting on helpless and stupid salmon: should we have risked swimming upstream? Should we risk evoking their wrath and make things worse? I inhale deeply and sigh, my hands shaking.

What other choice do we have?

I reach the spot and look to where Cassie is pointing, her thin white jacket now gray with grime. It's a truck.

We might just get out here!

Jack and I climb in while Cassie carjacks the car (I don't like to brag or anything, but I taught her everything she knows). And then, we're off. Cassie leave the headlights off and we coast lightly over the snowy earth (being from Georgia, neither of us knows how to drive on ice…this will be interesting) and onto the small side road. She accelerates to thirty and I swear that we are flying out of sight of the building.

"I'm going home!" Jack yells loudly. "I'm going to see my dad!"

"Sayonara, losers!" Cassie screams and flips on the headlights and illuminates the bright white landscape and I begin to dig furiously through the center console after turning the heat on full blast.

"WOOO!" I howl and we start to laugh, bubbles of relief bouncing out of our stomachs and past our mouths. "FREEDOM!"

Cassie hesitantly goes a little faster and lo and behold, I have found a cell phone! YES! Quickly I type in Hali's number and wait impatiently while it rings. Pick up, darn you!

Pick!

Up!

The!

PHONE!

"Hello?" A gentle voice asks suddenly and I freeze in surprise. What? What's going on here…?

"Greetings…?" I say hesitantly in the hopes that the person will keep talking, because this can't be right—I must be hallucinating or…something.

"Adva?"

"Reid?"

"You're alive! We saw the camera come back on a minute ago and you guys weren't there and we assumed...well, it doesn't matter." His words come out in a rush like a raging waterfall. "Hang on a second and stay on the phone, alright?! Morgan! Call Garcia, she needs to trace this number! Okay, Wolfe, I'm back—are you alright?"

"Dude, I'm awesome!" I yell with a smile on my face. The crisp air outside flying across my face from my open window and the warm air from the heater dancing across my skin: we're going home! It's really happening! "Reid, Cassie stole a car and now we're finally free! It's great! I'm not sure exactly where we are but…we've got to hit a highway eventually, right?"

"Alright, Reid, Garcia's got a lock on their location; let's go guys! We've found them!" Morgan yells and I hear running feet as they scramble into the vans.

Soon, Reid says Hotch is asking to talk to Jack, but why would he want to talk to the boy? Maybe it's some weird therapy thing FBI agents do over the phone to kids who go through severe trauma or whatever. Well, at least the kid sounds happy anyway; so, that must be good. A little creepy, sure, but good.

"So, right or left?" Cassie asks suddenly Huh? I look at the road and see that it forks. Oh, goody. This is just fantastic. "Umm…" I say. "How about uh…Jack? What do you think? Right or left?"

"Left!" Okay then.

"Well, you heard the kid." I say and just as the vehicle begins to accelerate, white stabbing painfully across the road behind us: they know we're gone. They've caught up. Oh no.

"Cassie?" Jack asks. "What's that?"

Death, I want to say. That's our death.

My heart sinks as the vehicle screams into view and then I'm screaming for Jack to get down just as something slices painfully into my upper right arm. Bullets infest the wall and shatter the windows. Glass reins down upon my shoulders and bury themselves into my hair. I scream and cover my ears even though I know that a wall of terror cannot save me from the painful death these beasts have in mind for us.

Or me, specifically.

**…**

Hotch can hear bullets shattering glass and yells to see if Jack is okay.

So far, he's still alive, but he's scared and crying.

"Daddy!" His son caterwauls, his voice thick with tears, "Daddy!" He yells over the sound of the chaos in the background

"I'm coming, Jack! I'm coming!" Hotch yells to his son, begging God to keep him safe until they get there-why aren't they there yet? There's a sickening crunch and the groans of twisting metal and Hotch knows that the other car has just rammed into them, probably flipping the vehicle.

First his wife is murdered, now his little boy? NO! Not if he can stop it!

"Step on it!" He yells before turning back to his phone.

"Adva?" He hears Cassie say and then footsteps are crunching in the snow and the girl is screaming in terror, causing Jack to cry harder.

"Daddy!" Jack screams. "DADDY!" His voice is fading away as if he was forcefully being dragged from the vehicle, "DADDY, HELP!"

A snap and the line goes dead.

"Hurry up, Morgan!" Hotch says and Reid flinches slightly. The giant Rottweiler, Taliyah, curls her lip upward in disdain before nuzzling Hotch's leg in sympathy. His hand finds her ears and starts to rub them unconsciously-a safety blanket in the form of a gently canine.

"I'm going as fast as I can, Hotch!" Morgan yells back. "Garcia! Which way now?"

"Take a right!" She says quickly. "You aren't too far now: see anything yet?"

"This can't be right…this is a park!" Hotch yells, "Are you sure we're going the right way?"

"Sure as rain: just keep going, there should be a side road on the left, guys. See it?"

"Yeah. Hang on." Morgan says an Reid sits up in his chair in an effort to see the vehicles and find the missing agent, her friend, and Hotch's child.

_Come on, come on!_ Hotch thinks. _Faster! They've got to get there and they've got to get there now—right now!_

**…**

Twenty minutes have passed.

And then thirty.

_Where are they?_ Hotch thinks. _Where is my son?_

Then they see it: a warped car, completely engulfed in flames. Hotch is out of the van and running at the flames before Morgan even has a chance to stop.

"Jack?" He yells. "JACK?"

No Jack.

"Hotch, calm down man. If the kidnappers are here things could get ugly fast." Morgan says. "We'll find them but we need to keep our heads, alright?"

Reluctantly, Hotch nods. "Okay."

They search the area around the car but find no bodies. The snow is faster, and had already buried the tracks of anyone or thing that had been in this area. Firemen come and put out the fire and Paramedics arrive and watch the agents silently, their hands crossed over their shivering chests.

"Now what?" Hotch growls as he scans the ground in vain.

Reid thinks carefully for a minute. "What about Taliyah?"

"What about her?" He stops and looks to the young agent.

"Well, she was trained to be a service dog, right? Maybe she can track them…?"

"Good idea."

**Hope you enjoyed; please review :)**


	18. Chapter 18

**Chapter 18**

Time was running out. In this weather, it wouldn't take long for the children to catch hypothermia and succumb to the fury of the blizzard that roared angrily in defiance. Snow piled higher and higher, completely erasing any footprints that could have been used to follow the suspects.

Reid swallows.

With every minute those kids spend out in this storm, their chances of survival were dropping lower and lower. What has Adva Wolfe gotten herself into?

**…**

The BAU searched the park and surrounding forest for hours before finally finding Cassie and Jack in a small wooden clubhouse inside the park. Cassie had a bloody head wound and Jack is lying unnaturally still.

But Wolfe was still MIA (Missing In Action).

"Jack!"

Hotch runs into the room and crouches by his son. His large hand grips the boy's small shoulder and sighs with relief when the boy's eyelids flutter open.

"Daddy?" He blinks and smiles. "Daddy!"

Hotch rips his (Hotch's) jacket off and wraps it tightly around the child's trembling frame. "It's alright now. It's going to be alright, Jack."

Hotch then hugs his son to his chest, tears dripping down his face and the weight of worry Hotch has been carrying finally slides off of his shoulder like water. Morgan tends to Cassie and Hotch notes with relief that, although she is unconscious, she is still breathing: still alive.

"We need medics!" Morgan yells loudly and the paramedics storm into the room and quickly take Cassie onto a gurney and wheel her into the ambulance. Hotch stands and carries his son over to the ambulance and pass him over to a waiting paramedic. She smiles gently at him and places Jack onto another gurney.

"He's in good hands, sir. We'll take him to the hospital and run some tests, but I'm sure she'll be fine." She says lightly and Hotch nods to her and walks away.

_Two down, one to go,_ he thinks.

**…**

I wake up and my arm is on fire. Turning my head I see a crude bandage slapped across my arm and a heck of a lot of blood—oh right, yeah, I remember now: I was shot when Cassie was driving. Now, I'm lying on my back in a box of some kind and it's a little difficult to breathe. Something is thudding softly on the top of the box (a lid…? Wait a minute…am I in a refrigerator?! Are they burying me?)

Then, I'm screaming: "LET ME OUT!"

My hands and feet bang furiously against the door but it won't budge: there's probably too much dirt already covering me up: hack, they're probably done now and leaving me to suffocate in this hellish tomb.

_My childhood flashes back to me: my mom deranged and ranting, my arm sliced up from a knife clutched tightly in my own mother's fingers, her angry shrieks as she locks me in a closet. My hands pounding furiously against the door, all the while my stuggles getting weaker and weaker from lack of blood…waking up in the hospital hours later and lying to the doctors._

_What happened? Do you remember? How did you get hurt little girl? Hello? Are you listening?_

_I don't remember._ I avoided eye contact, stared at the floor: cheap salt and pepper tiled squares smelling of antiseptic.

_Are you sure? Did someone hurt you? Come, on. What happened? Let us help you, kid. How did you get hurt?_

_I don't remember. _I looked him right in the eye, my green eyes narrowed and angry, tears welling up.

_The truth was, I did remember: I just couldn't believe it. I mean…what kind of mother attacks her own kid? How can the one person who is supposed to love you unconditionally, no matter what, snap and turn into something else in a matter of seconds…?_

"HELP!" I scream loudly and pound harder against the refrigerator door, but I know inside that no one is coming and, if they are, they probably wouldn't find me. Not until it's too late, anyway. That does mean, of course, that I stopped hitting the door: oh, no, that only increased my panic.

Finally, I give up and lie there, gasping for air. How long do I have left? An hour maybe? Carefully, I twist my head around and try to something that will help me.

They left the cellphone in here.

And a note.

Why? Why bother leaving gifts for the dead or dying?

**…**

Spenser's phone rings and he answers it immediately: "Are you alright? Where are you?"

"Depends on your definition on alright, doctor…"

"_Adva!_ Are you okay?"

"I'm in a refrigerator and I'm fairly certain that it's underground…and…it's getting more than a little difficult to breath. Plus, I'm slightly claustrophobic and freaking out—just a little." Her breath comes faster, in large hysterical gulps.

His stomach does somersaults and he fights to swallow down the nausea. "It's all right; calm down. We are going to find you, Adva. You are going to be alright." Her breathing slows down a little and he can almost hear her smiling as her sanity returns to her.

"Thanks, Dr. Reid."

"Anytime." He tells her before turning towards the other agents: "HOTCH!" He yells. "I've got Adva on the line—and it's not good."

Hotch's phone is out in an instant: "Garcia? I need you track the person that Reid is talking to on his cell—it's Adva."

"Don't say another word, I'm on it."

**…**

They run towards the sight with Garcia giving them directions every step of the way. Dirt lies scatted around a hole roughly four feet deep: the lid the refrigerator cracked open, no Adva in sight, and thanks to the snow, no footprints either. But there was a large puddle of partially frozen blood in the fridge and it wasn't hard for the BAU to entertain the notion that their newest member could be seriously injured.

Morgan shakes his head. "You know what? Forget about the unsubs, when we find this kid,_ I'm _going to kill her."

"What's the point?" Emily asks. "Seriously? She was in a small and enclosed area with a limited amount of oxygen: it was get free fast or die slowly. We wouldn't have gotten here in time and she knew it."

"So why leave?" Gideon asks. "If she knew we were coming for her, why vacate the area and not wait?"

"She was probably worried about what would happen if the unsubs came back and see her out—maybe considered that they'd just finish the job."

"So, she ran further into the forest and got more lost? No, something is wrong here. We're missing something." Reid says.

"So, what now?" Morgan asks and Reid looks to Taliyah.

"Adva trained this dog besides real life police canines and got her certified as a Search and Rescue dog that could double easily as a police canine. Her records show that Wolfe and Taliyah were members of the SAR (Search and Rescue) for years and tracked and found hundreds missing people in south Georgia. Who's to say Tali can't do that now? The upturned soil is relatively fresh; chances are the scent on the ground is fresh enough for the Taliyah to follow the trail..."

**…**

I'm running now as fast as I possibly can. My lungs are burning from the cold and exertion but I don't dare slow down. In my hands lie life and death. If my friend Clark is to live, I cannot die. I hear a yell ahead of me to the left and I turn in time to see Clark stumbling wearily towards a rushing river: it hasn't gotten cold enough to freeze it yet.

This will not end well.

"Hold on!"

The thing about Kansas is that it is a very flat place with lots of meadows and open fields that provide no cover from gunfire. The moment my hand snatched a hold of Clark's to stop him from falling in, bullets filled the frozen air.

Then, I'm dragging him behind me and we race for into the safety of the trees. Something hot slices into my arm and I yelp, curling downwards in shock and pain only to be dragged back to my feet by Clark.

"RUN, ADVA!" He yells and then we're splitting up: him running right and me racing to the left. Will this nightmare never end?

**…**

"We've got bullets in the air!" Hotch yells into his phone. "Where is the SWAT team and where are the SAR volunteers?"

"They've been stalled by the storm: there's a heck of a lot of ice on those roads." Garcia says. "It looks like you guys are on your own."

A figure races towards them. "FREEZE! FBI!" Morgan says and, as one, all the agents lift their guns to fire. Surprised, they watch as the figure lurches, their feet slipping on the ice, before face planting into the thick snow, a puddle of red staining the whitened ground. Another figure runs up and again Morgan screams his warning.

"PUT YOUR HANDS UP! FBI!"

"It's me, Clark Ryann: Adva's friend! Don't shoot, I'm not armed! My friend needs help here! Please! Call an ambulance or something! She's hurt!"

Reid is there in an instant, his gun forced quickly back into his holster as he quickly tries to stem the bleeding.

"Adva? Adva! You need to wake up; come on, Adva!" Reid yells quickly. From what he can see, she's been shot twice in her right arm and that arm was twisted awkwardly to the side. Reid takes of his jacket and wraps it carefully around her before letting Morgan lift her gently into his (Morgan's) arms and they jog back towards the ambulances with Emily running ahead.

**Well, I sincerely hope that you guys are enjoying the story. How is it so far? Please don't forget Review: every comment helps, no matter how short. :)**


	19. Chapter 19

**Decided to mix things up and add a little humor. As we Americans say, YOLO (You Only Live Once which is basically the same as saying 'why not?')**

**Chapter 19**

I have a tendency of freaking people out (this happens often)…and also making things not run according to plan. Like the day I was kidnapped.

And now.

Day one at the hospital.

**…**

White. Everything is white and blurred. My head pounds and my arm is screaming and itching, but something keeps it clasped firmly to my chest. Carefully, I try to lift my head and look around, but it feels heavy as if it were made of iron. My world spins and soon, I'm seeing a blizzard of colors just as everything fades away to nothingness.

The words that I later wake up to are quiet and hushed.

_Shot twice._

_Broken arm._

_Ribs badly bruised._

_Slight Concussion._

_Lost lots of blood._

And then another—and very strange word: _miracle._ It was a _miracle_ that I had not died. A _miracle _that nothing worse had happened and I escaped somewhat unscathed.

I didn't feel like a miracle.

I felt tired.

And so, I slept.

But after a while, I woke up and I was alone in the room. My backpack was sitting on the floor. So, me being up, I get up, grab my bag and walk into the adjoining bathroom in my creepy little hospital room. After about twenty minutes (and with one hand tied to my chest—stupid sling), I slip into blue sweat pants, white socks, and a black t-shirt (a Batman shirt, obviously). And then I left and wandered around aimlessly until I had eventually found the waiting room.

The doctors who had been seeing to my medical condition had obviously started freaking out the moment they found I had disappeared. But, hey, in my defense, I'm socially challenged. How was I supposed to know abandoning a hospital while injured was some moral social crime?

Well, I went into the waiting room and took a seat. Off to my immediate right were the other BAU agents (and Garcia somehow…did she take a plane here or something? And why would she do that…? Weird). Reid was pacing and Tali was snoring on the ground. The other agents conversed nervously with one another but no one notices me. So, I grab a newspaper and squint at the news (without my glasses, I'm blind, and, unfortunately, have lost my glasses somewhere in the mystical forest of terror…yep, that's _totally _its name).

After ten minutes, I get bored. That's when the sirens start going off and the BAU _freak out._ And then police are walking into the hospital and everyone looks at each other in surprise. Hotch, Gideon, Morgan, and Emily are taken through the doors and walk out of sight to some other part of the hospital. The others look at each other and share a worried look and Garcia wraps poor Reid into a hug and starts to squeeze the life out of him.

"Was it the kidnappers?" JJ asks when the other return.

"We don't know." Gideon says. "She's just gone."

"Who's gone?" I ask. "What are you guys talking about? What happened?" I'm completely confused and, to make matters worse, they all start to laugh at me and then my skin is crawling as I'm forced into a group hug. A doctor comes running through the double doors and Hotch moves to intercept him.

"It's alright, doctor. She' right here."

And then I'm back in my hospital room.

This time, I'm sedated.

Jerks.

**…**

For twenty four hours I drifted in and out of consciousness, but, every time I woke up, there was always somebody there: Hali, dad, or even Reid. I could hear Tali snoring on the ground or pacing restlessly back and forth, her claws ticking as they stabbed into the floor, and the other agents mumming outside my hospital room. They were stuck in Kansas because of the blizzard; there was too much snow on the landing strip to take off.

"How are you feeling?"

I open my eyes and turn towards the voice only to see a white and brown smudge looming far away: what is that thing?

"And…you would be?" I ask. Is it human?

"What you don't remember me? After all our deep philosophical conversations over the phone and you forget about me just like that? Hm, guess I must have bored you." His sarcasm isn't aimed for cruelty…humor, maybe?

"Are you Reid?"

"Bingo: I guess I see why you choose computers over profiling." I imagine him smiling kindly, his brown eyes lighting up with unspoken amusement.

"I'm near-sighted remember? My glasses are…missing."

"A likely story saying that you're blind."

I smile, knowing he was just as socially clueless as I was (Finally! Someone normal!). "Sorry, for…everything. For…running out and not waking anyone up and screwing everything up. How'd the investigation go? With the serial killer?"

"Turn out, the killers were your kidnappers and we've found most of them."

"Most?"

"Yeah, the leader, a woman, escaped, but, don't worry, we'll find her…do you know who she was? Or what she looked like?"

I did. She was my mother; how could I not know what she looked like after she tormented my siblings and me for years? But, I didn't say it aloud: I was still in shock from it. Sort of like the time when I was thirteen and she put a gun to my forehead and pulled the trigger. The gun hadn't been loaded, but she had thought it was. I was shocked to silence and thought that maybe I had remember it wrong: that I was the crazy one and hallucinated the encounter…but I hadn't.

Hali had it all on tape.

Guess I wasn't crazy after all.

"I don't know." I say, and it was true. Maybe the woman looked like my mom and I naturally assumed they were the same person…maybe I'm remember it wrong…the doctors said I had a slight concussion…that could mess up with my memory.

"Are you sure?"

No.

"Yes. I'm sure."

"Okay." He puts a hand on my shoulder and leaves the room. "I'll tell Hali you're awake; she's been wanting to talk to you for hours."

"Thanks." I say quietly and he smiles at me, causing warmth to trickle through my chest and limbs, a smile beaming off my face, and, if I didn't have light olive skin, a blanket of red capturing my cheeks.

"You're awake!" She runs into the room and flings her arms around me causing sharp pain the consume my arm. I tense and she moves away quickly. "Sorry! Are you alright? I didn't mean to…"

"Shut up, I'm fine. Really." She smiles sadly and I continue. "So, where's dad and the others? They okay?"

"Yeah, they went home yesterday." She says and looks at her feet in shame.

Dad and I had been close when he left for the war but he felt like a stranger when he had gotten back. Hospitals, people, and dogs made him uncomfortable now. Really, it was no surprise that he had left me here: the memories of his time overseas attacking him while he looked at these boring white walls. But still, I felt a large hole open up in chest to think that I didn't matter enough for him to stay long enough to at least hello. Why can't things be like before?

"How do you feel?"

I'm in a hospital surrounded by multiple people, most of them I do not know, in an area that I have never been before. For all I knew, the doctors are serial killers; the nurses could be homicidal maniacs. And if I don't talk to them, I'm committing a morally wrong social sin. If they say anything containing figurative language—I won't _get it!_ And then I'll say something, somehow offend them, and then they'll vow vengeance.

And the BAU would solve my murder.

But hey, at least they still employed, right?

"I'm fine." I say. "Who wouldn't I be…?"

And then we talk about life, politics, and the roots of all evil: Global Warming and cats (well…maybe not so much Global warming, but _cats_ are evil: trust me). After a while, she leaves and I'm left with my own thoughts—most of which include escaping from the hospital…but it'd be pointless anyway with the roads shut down due to the blizzard. So, for now, I'll wait.


	20. Chapter 20

**Chapter 20**

They keep me for a week for 'observation', but, personally, I think the doctors were just angry that I made them look like fools (some of the nurses and I high fived and joked about it…which didn't help my case much) and are using 'observations' to get revenge. Really, all I'm doing is staring at the walls while they give me antibiotics through the IV in my left arm. That's it. No X-Rays or tests…just boredom.

Hali and the BAU came in often to visit and Emily forcibly signed my cast. I fought valiantly, but that woman is relentless, stubborn, and more than a little scary. Eventually, she pinned my left arm (my good arm) down and scrawled her name across my blue cast. The words EMILY PRENTISS forever permanently sharpied into the blue…plaster? Then, of course, everyone else signed too. I was too busy glaring at Emily to really notice the other names…until I looked down.

And then I was sad.

So, being the mature adults that they were, they started throwing balloons at me while laughing evilly. But don't worry, I'm planning revenge.

Now, I'm in the FBI van and Cassie sits beside me and Jack beside her. We'll go back to Virginia in the FBI jet and then Cassie (and Hali) will catch a plane back to Georgia. For at least three weeks, I'm to stay home in my apartment and rest.

They do realize that I'm a hopeless insomniac with ADD like tendencies, right? So, me 'staying still' for extended amounts of time will inevitable end in failure. But 'The Man' (or 'The Woman'—Strauss—as Reid explains) ordered the recuperation time, so, there is no way around it.

That does not mean that I cannot walk my dog skating boarding to get groceries, or volunteer at the local SAR, or walk five miles to the library. It only means that I cannot 'work' at the FBI HQ. I love technicalities.

**…**

We're on the plane. The wheels leap off the ground and then we're up in the air, soaring over the clouds. For a few minutes, I stare at the wall and go back through everything that's happened to us while we were kidnapped. Was that really my mom? Would she really do that?

"Hello? Wolfe?" I look up and see that everyone is staring at me. I swallow nervously and look at Morgan.

"Yo," I say and he smiles a little.

"You okay there?" Emily asks. "You don't look so hot."

"My body temperature is fine, thanks."

"She meant that you look emotionally disturbed." Reid provides, his lips curling into an amused half smile.

Oh, right. Duh.

"Right, sorry. Yeah, I was just thinking: but I'm okay. Just…bored, I guess."

"What, we're not entertaining enough for you?" Hotch jokes.

"About as entertaining as drying paint, sir." I say and receive a small smile from him in return. Ordinarily, he'd have probably killed me for making a comment like that, but I guess exhaustion is a two way street, and neither of us has enough energy to go down the road of intellectual engagement right now. Still, he'll probably kill me for it later.

"So, do you want to play a game of cards?" Reid offers.

"Well, that would depend." I say with a yawn.

"Depend on what?"

"Well, first, I'd need my glasses for obvious reasons. I've been told from reliable resources that you've abducted them, doctor."

A smile. "Of, course." He passes my glasses over and I find myself grinning as everything jumps back into surface. "So, what now?"

"Depends." I shrug.

"On?"

"One whether or not you're ready to lose."

**…**

It was funny because he let me win the first game. And then I let him win the second. One the third, we were both giving it all we had. Turned out, the doc could play a mean game of poker.

Who knew?

By now Garcia, Morgan, and Emily had joined in and we looked at one another with mock calm whereas inside our hearts were racing with excitement and adrenaline or sinking with disappointment at our poor hands. Reid lays down a royal flush, crushing us all. I narrow my eyes slightly and shake my head.

He's cheating somehow—I know he is.

…

"You're a brave kid." Gideon says when we land and I look at him. What was that supposed to mean? He smirks, seeing my expression, "No one plays cards with Reid and, not only do you play him three times, you manages to drag three more agents into the game." He puts a hand on my shoulder. "That is not something many people are able to accomplish."

Then he walks away into the night.

What a strange man. Cool, sure, but really strange.

…

"So, how are you getting home?" Reid asks and I shrug.

"Guess I'm walking, doc." A tighten my grip and Tali's leash. With my backpack's weight on only my left shoulder, it's getting heavy—fast. All I want to do is go back to my apartment and go to sleep. Reid seems determined not to let this happen.

"That's dangerous." He says.

"Not really." I walk around him and outside, the cool air chilling my lungs.

"Many kidnappings occur at night and it wouldn't be inconceivable for someone to try to take you: you're young, would be alone, and also injured—an easy target." I pause and look at him, irritation surging through my body. How dare he? I'm not some frail princess that needs protecting!

"I'll be fine. I've dealt with worse." A warning soaks my words but he doesn't seem to catch it because as I start to walk away, he keeps pace with me and refuses to be left behind.

"I'm going with you. I live in the next apartment over anyway."

"Why? Why bother?" I ask, suddenly stopping and wheeling to face him. I hate this: sympathy and pity. I spent my entire life to pretend to be normal and not to get on anyone's radars; I'm not some child that needs to be watched.

If I can survive my mother, than I can take on anyone who prowls the streets.

Just let them _try_ to take me: I dare them to make my day.

And the BAU would never find the body.

"Because…I don't want you to get hurt." And then he has by bag slung over his shoulder; how did he even get that?

"What do you mean?"

"I don't know." He shrugs and looks at his feet. "I've been worried about you…you're…you're my friend. I didn't know if you were dead or dying until the kidnappers started sending clips in the mail or live feed over Garcia's monitors." His voice drops to a whisper. "It was awful." His brown eyes come up to meet mine.

I swallow and look away. No one outside my family has ever cared about me and, if life taught me anything, it was that emotions are dangerous. I cared about my mother and she broke me into so many pieces that I'm not even recognizable anymore.

It was safer to ignore the emotion of caring.

Because carrying led to love.

And love was dangerous.

"I'm sorry." I start walking again and Reid stays on my heels, his hands shoved into his pockets, his jacket now sitting carefully across my shoulders. "I'm not good at keeping friends. Look at where at got Cassie and Clark: it got Cassie kidnapped and nearly put Clark in his grave." Five seconds later, and he'd have suffocated in that watery tomb. I shudder.

"I'm an FBI agent." He shrugs, "I've seen worse." A gentle, joking smile. A soft whisper of wind, not cold but not quite warm either. We start to walk again, both of us working quietly through our own thoughts before he speaks again: "You know…you're not alone."

"What do you mean?" Of course I'm alone.

"My mom. She's sick."

"I'm sorry. Do you mind if I ask you how long she has?" I glance at him and see him smile ruefully and shake his head.

"No, what I mean is, she's a paranoid schizophrenic. So, I kind of know what you're going through. If you every want to talk or anything." He shrugs. "I'll listen. If you want."

I nod. My head is spinning and I can't seem to think straight. His mom is sick too? Was she as dangerous as mine was? Did she ever try to hurt him? What happened with them? Did he get her help?

"Okay."

"So…?"

And then I tell him everything. My mother and how bad it was. The kidnapping and who I thought the woman was. The chaos. Confusion. Pain. I tell him about caring for my siblings at twelve years old and how I stared up at the stars every night, praying that God would bring my father home…because then, everything would be okay again—I just knew it. I told him about how we nearly starved to death and how Hali and I had to get jobs after school just so we'd have food to eat and clothes on our backs and how Hali and I joined the SAR and trained Tali.

How I'd found a small half-starved month old Rottweiler puppy abandoned in a dumpster. It was raining and I could count every single rib she had. She was a skeleton covered in dirty fur. We fed her eggs and bit by bit, she got just a little better. We had thought she'd die no less than three second occasions, but she survived—but just barely.

In winters we depended on Hali and mine miniscule income for food and in summers we got what we could from the forest, but, often, I had gone without food for days to let the others get a chance at sustenance. It was hard and brutal and, often, I had felt more like an animal than a child.

But we had survived.

And I had escaped.

…

"So, now you know." I say finally. We're sitting on a park bench and staring up at the stars.

"That sounds hard."

"It was…but there was hope. One day, I'd turn eighteen and, if dad didn't show up, I'd have to get us all out of that place."

"And now everything is okay. Your family is safe and you can have your own life."

"Yes." I yawn and he pushes my shoulder lightly.

"Let's get you home—it's getting late."

"Do I need to PhD in order to figure out that it is late, doctor?"

"No, I think a bachelor's degree would suffice." We look at each other and then we're laughing. Maybe he was right. Maybe being friends wouldn't be that hard after all.


	21. Chapter 21

**Chapter 20**

So far, the BAU has been drowning in paperwork; so, every day after work, Reid pops over to hang out. Today, we're watching Star Trek: the Original Series. It's a little weird because, I'm watching it for the first time, and he's whispering what everyone is saying while they are saying it: guess I'm not the only one with no life.

And then we walk to get some ice cream, him saying that it'd be good for me to get some air and get out of the apartment for a while (not knowing that I've been out to the schools to run system checks on their computers, helped find two missing kids with the SAR, and walked Tali around the park for a few hours, but what he doesn't know what hurt him, right?). Tali whines at the door, but I leave her inside: it wouldn't kill her to be alone for a few hours, right?

We're at the store. Reid orders a vanilla shake and I get chocolate. We sip at our shakes for a minute and smile at each other.

"How are you feeling?" He asks and I shrugs a little, wincing as pain darts up my right arm.

"Okay, I guess." The doctor had prescribed pain pills but I haven't taken any: I don't want to risk getting addicted and then going through withdrawals. "How is work? Anything noteworthy happen?"

"You remember Garcia? The woman who worked with the computers?" He says quietly and shifts uncomfortably. Uh, oh. This can't be good.

"Yeah, is everything okay?"

He smiles ruefully, "She's fine but…you know those troll dolls in her office? I, um…lit some on fire…"

"For science?"

"No, on accident. I was playing around with a lighter and the flame got a little close to the synthetic hair on its head…and I didn't notice until three more had burst into flames…" His brown eyes glance up to meet mine and then we're laughing.

I can so see that: his face concentrating intently on the fire, the dolls slowly melting, Garcia's look of rage and horror at finding her beloved toys slowly roasting their way into oblivion, and then The Hotch Glare. Imagine the chaos in the bullpen. Man. The poor guy is going to get laughed at for weeks.

"What about you? Think you can top that?"

"Yep, I saved two lives today."

"Oh, really?" He rolls his eyes in mock scorn.

"Yeah, I went out with the SAR today with Taliyah. Two little girls, identical twins about five years old, went missing in a park; so, Tali and I went to help with the search. Found them in about ten minutes; they had decided to wander down the road to this very store."

"Well, nothing caught fire," he jokes, "But that is pretty awesome. Shouldn't you be resting though?"

"Aw, but doctor, 'exercise and fresh air' would be good for me, yeah?" I nudge him with my left elbow and he shakes his head. "But, on the bright side, Tali had fun. That's cool, right? So, what was your punishment, for the dolls?"

"Well, I have to break the news to you."

News? I cock my head to the side, confusion running through my body like a herd of wild mustangs: fast and wild and unstoppable.

"What news?"

"Until your arm heals, you'll be with the BAU as a Profiler."

"But I'm not a Profiler. I'm a computer technition."

"Gideon says you were really proficient; in fact, your profile of the kidnappers led to them getting arrested."

"Except for the leader: the woman."

"Yeah."

"And Morgan says 'hi'. Emily said she'll drop by one day to hang out with you, see how you're doing. I think her, Garcia, and JJ all plan to mob you, so stay on your toes."

"Hm, maybe I should change my name, learn French, and move to Canada, eh?"

He chuckles: "If Strauss assigns us anymore paper work, then I'll probably join you."

**…**

Finally! Back to work! Yes!

It's about four o'clock in the morning, but I don't care: any longer in that apartment and I'd go crazy with boredom. I've spent so much time socializing with strangers that I think I could understand why some people become serial killers: boredom.

I walk into the BAU with Tali hot on my heels. She barks happily and her little nub of a tail is wagging wildly from excitement: I guess she missed this place as much as I did. The moment I walk into the bullpen, I'm mobbed. Everyone (except Hotch and…some new guy, possibly of Italian descent) wraps me tightly into a group bear hug. I gasp and eventually manage to wriggle out of the Boa Constrictor like grasp. They laugh at me and I hang my head in mock shame. JJ pats me on the back and smiles gently before calling the Profilers away to discuss their next case. Reid looks over his shoulder at me.

"Wolfe? You coming?"

Oh…right. I'm a Profiler until my arm heals…I can't fix hard drive with only one arm.

Dang it.

"Sure…?" I say walk quickly to catch up to them.

Turns out, the next case is in my hometown.

This is just fantastic!

**…**

"Okay, so five kids were killed in the forest, all with blunt force." JJ begins and then shows up pictures of the bodies. I shudder inwardly, I know some of these kids. Well, I_ knew_ them, anyway. All were Caucasian and blond, each child roughly ten years old or close to that age.

Emma, nine years old.

Tom, nine years old.

Catelyn, ten years old.

Bryan, ten years old.

Simon, ten years old.

Why would anyone target these kids? Was it their religion (Christian) or their physical appearance (Caucasian and blond)? Did their killer know them and lure them away, were they stolen by a stranger, or were they simply snatches up: a crime of opportunity? And why use a blunt object if a gun or knife is far more effective?

"Alright," The new guy says. "Wheels up in thirty minutes."

…

The plane ride is pretty quiet. We talk more about the case, but, really, until we see the actual crime scene, we can't really hope to get a very good idea of what kind of person the killer is. Reid pulls a pack of playing cards from his pocket and he and Emily play a few rounds (Emily wins most of the games, to his disappointment).

"So, Wolfe," Prentiss says. "You want to play a few rounds?"

I look down at my right arm, which is still in a cast before shrugging at her. "I'm not really sure if I can at the moment but I can pretend to be peppy and give moral support—from way over here." She grins at my anti-socialness.

"Alright, suite yourself."

"So, where are we staying while we're working the case?" I ask Hotch and he shrugs at me in response and lifts an eyebrow at me before speaking.

"I was actually wondering if you'd think it'd be okay for us to stay at your old home while we were down. Location wise, it's only a five minute drive from all of the crime scenes as well as the homes of the victims."

I'm nodding in agreement but, inside, my heart is sinking: I never wanted to go back to that house again. But hey, we've all got to grow up sometime, right? And my mom has been missing since I was sixteen…there's nothing to worry about now…just the memories.

"I think I'd be alright." No, I know good and well that my dad would say yes in a heartbeat if it meant having me home. "But I may need to call ahead and make sure. Could I do that now?" Hotch nods and turns back to the new guy after saying, "Just make sure to update me."


	22. Chapter 22

**This one is sort of a filler chapter but there is some humor towards the end. **

**Chapter 22**

Everyone but Reid and I are asleep now. I look at the young doctor and then nod to the new guy.

"Who is that? And where's Gideon?" I ask quietly.

"That's Agent Rossi. Gideon left." His voice is flat and monotone but his eyes give way to the inner turmoil he's feeling inside. It must be hard for him for his mentor to abandon him like this…but sometimes, this job must get old. I can see why the gentle old man left; between all the violence and death he had to investigate, it wasn't really a choice: it was survival. This job takes so much, after a while, working all those cases has to affect your sanity and peace of mind-it must be better to get out while you still can, before your heartbeat as well as your life.

"Oh." Is all I can really say. I'd like to say that I'm shocked by this new revelation, but, like Reid, I'm only saddened: Gideon is a good man-he deserves to retire.

"He's an author." Reid says distractedly, his attention focused on a book in front of him. "The new guy, David Rossi is."

"Is that what you're reading now?" I lean over to pet Tali's silky black ears. "One of his books?"

"Yeah, they're actually pretty interesting. So, what did your people say about the lodging arrangements?" He now turns all of his attention to me, his eyes burning into mine intently.

"Dad agreed to let us stay. By the time we land, he'll be at work and my siblings at school, so, I'll have to let us in the door. Room wise…I don't know how exactly that'll work out. There are four of them: dad, Hali, Roni, and Nate. The girls could double up rooms and I'm sure some of you guys could help move some of the furniture, that'll leave about four rooms open. So, I guess Garcia and Prentiss to a room, Hotch and…Rossi in another, then Morgan and you to one…and JJ can get the spare room off of the kitchen. Any other combination of agents to a room could work, too."

"What about you? Not planning on sleeping outside are you?" He raises an eyebrow jokingly.

"I've laid claim to the living room couch—it folds out into a bed."

"Or you can sleep in your own room. It might be nice to return after being gone for so long."

I smile weakly and turn away, "There are too many demons lying in wait there for me-this isn't some vacation to me Reid-it's a job. That's it. Once we've finished it, so has my stay here. It's temporary and nothing more."

**…**

We touch down and stumble groggily to our feet, using the heels of our hands to rub sleep from our eyes. Morgan drives and I stare out the window. Reid is talking about theoretical laws of physics (like String Theory) and how they may one day be proven true and impact…something rather.

Society, maybe?

"So," Rossi turns around and looks at me. "What's your family like? Any crazies?"

I give him a funny look and shrug, "Depends on your definition of crazy, sir." I say carefully, my tone flat and even. "But there are only four people who live in the house were are going to: my father, my two younger sisters, Hali and Roni, and my little brother, Nate. All of them seem fairly normal so far, but, Roni and Nate are in high school, and, if I've learned anything from life, it's that high school is a stumbling block for even the best of us sanity wise."

He smiles a little at that. "Can't say I disagree. So, what's the weather like down here?"

"Hot and humid in the summer and chilly in the winter."

"Does it snow?"

"Nope, most days the temperature is around 50 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit, but it only snows once every 7 years or so…and even then, it's a light flurry—no blizzards or anything drastic. The ground is usually hot enough that the flakes melt upon impact so, there will be a hard frost on the ground or maybe sleet in ponds but typically there is no snow."

"Sounds like a textbook answer." He says critically and I shrug in response.

"I read a lit."

"Why all the fields?"

"This area relies heavily upon agriculture for income, so, you'll find quite a few farms: the usual crop grown in this area would be cotton."

"Sounds like you know the area fairly well."

"I know every trail in the forest, every building, and every alley in this town. I know where every single clique hangs out as well as where the not so great people converge."

"What about the normal populace: kids from your school and such? How well do you know them?"

People were always background noise: something irritating with harsh grating sounds that spewed past their lips. I ignored them as they ignored me. They weren't worthy of noticing and it typically took me forever, and a heck of a lot of effort, to learn their names. In the end, it wasn't really worth the waste of time to figure out who they were and commit it to memory: they never remembered me. Why bother with it?

"It would depend on who they were." I say carefully. I only ever noticed the outliners: the people whose actions defied logic and the social norms. They were people who I profiled over and over again in an effort to understand abstract behavior.

Yet another waste of time.

…

We have arrived. I inhale the crisp Georgian deeply and hop out of the car, quickly unclipping Tali from her leash so she can walk around to relieve herself and become semi-familiar with the area.

"Wow, nice house." Rossi comments and I nod. Sure, but doesn't everything from the outside looking in seem nice until you dare yourself to look closer?

Walking up to the door I pace in the doorway and carefully remove a loose brick and pull out the key. Within moments to door in unlocked and I'm walking inside. It's been years since I've been inside, but I can still hear the screams reverberating through the walls, the shattering of glass as a bottle was hurled across the room, my mother's voice whispering up the stairs as she whispered our names into the darkness and slowly sharped the kitchen knife set.

"You okay? You need a hug or something?" Rossi asks and I move out of the way to let the other agents in.

"Yes, sir. Just weird seeing this place again." I shrug and take my shoes off and walk into the living room.

"Look, kid, just call me 'Rossi', alright?"

"Okay."

…

SLAM!

"So, who died this time?" I ask casually, my feet up on the coffee table, my head buried in a book talking about notorious serial killers.

"No one. Yet." Hali vows darkly.

"Need help hiding the body? I now this pond not too far from here and there's always the forest: hundreds of miles of trails, many of them long forgotten by society and known only by me." I say with a wide smile and glance up at Hali who is shaking her head in silent shame as if to say _'man, my sanity is doomed if Adva is the normal one of the family'._

"Perhaps you two should have this conversation at a different time: away from federal agents who could easily serve as key witnesses in a court of law," Hotch advises with a small smile.

"Ah, that's no fun." Hali says before changing the subject. "So, how is your guys' case going? Catch the killer yet?"

"No, we're planning on resting here a few hours before going to the crime scenes to give the jetlag a chance to wear off a little." Rossi says with a nod to agents JJ and Prentiss, who are sleeping on the couch and then Morgan and Reid: Morgan sleeping in an easy chair and Reid passed out cold on the floor, an opened book lying abandoned beside him. I feel my lips curling up into a half smile: he looks just like a little kid right now—it's adorable.

I guess it pays to be an insomniac since, right now, I'm one of the very few who are still conscious.

"Sounds like a plan." Hali replies with a knowing nod and I turn back to my book and Tali gets up to get a drink of water out of her bowl and then rests her large head on my knee, long lines of saliva dropping past her lips and onto my knee—I hate it when she does this! I swear, she does it just to irritate me: look at that smile on her mouth: oh, it's war now.

Rossi shudders slightly and I swallow back bile.

"So." I say casually and lean back a little to rest my left arm against the couch cushion (I'm sitting on the floor). "Want one?" I point to Taliyah and Rossi walks out of the room and Hotch lifts an eyebrow at me.

"Just make sure to be cleaned up before we go out in public." Is all he says before turning on his heel and walking away to hide a smile of amusement.


	23. Chapter 23

**Sorry I've been gone so long and not updating, I've just had a lot of stuff going on, but I will try to update more over the next few days. Sorry about the delay guys, really.**

**Chapter 23**

Reid, Morgan, and I are sent to one crime scene in the forest while the others check out a different one. The crime scene is awful. The child lies face down in the dirt, blunt force trauma to the right side of the skull is the obvious cause of death. The leaves are scattered around like a frenzy, deep boot marks scar the mud. The killer had had no control with the slaughter: this was an enraged frenzy, not a typical kidnapping. That poor kid.

"It looks like an attack of rage." I say, "A frenzy…I'd like to say for revenge but the unsub is clearly an adult or a teenager judging by the size of the footprint—possibly male—but this can't be a personal attack: not against so many children with similar phenotypes."

"The children could be a substitute victim for someone else—someone the unsub can't get to." Reid murmurs.

"Maybe a childhood bully?" Morgan says.

"Possibly." I add with a shrug of my shoulders. "But why lay the kid face down: remorse? If the killer was remorseful about it, then why take another life?"

"Maybe he can't control it. Chances are, the unsub could have some sort of mental illness and may be unmediated, which would make staying in control of their actions that much harder." Reid proposes, his eyebrows furrowed in thought.

"The unsub probably saw the victims and watched them for a series of weeks to get their routines to memory. They could have been anyone. The kids were abducted from public areas so, chances are, the unsub was not only someone they knew, but someone that they trusted and then killed."

"The frenzy could be an indicator of the lack of control the unsub could lack in their day to life. They had no control in something either past or present, so they have to dominate the crime scene." I guess and Reid nods slightly.

"Maybe." Morgan turns and looks at Reid and me in turn. "Alright, let's go meet up with the others and see what they've learned."

**…**

They had come to the mostly the same conclusions we had about the unsub. So far, so good. I guess. We go back to the house and Hali smiles and invites us in, the tantalizing aroma of lasagna permeating the air.

"This place is beginning to grow on me." Rossi says with a sly smile to Morgan who rolls his eyes at him.

I shake my head at Hali and try to wrap my mind around the idea that the FBI is standing in my living room. Yep, still feels weird.

"So, anything noteworthy happen today?" I ask Hali and fish a bottled water out of the fridge.

"Yep, I'm now the leader of the SAR for this area." If smiles could give off sunlight, my house would be burning from the amount of joy shooting off of her face.

"Congratulations." Reid commends her and she shakes hands with him before raising an eyebrow at me.

"That's great." We high five and Rossi's stomach growls.

"So, you guys got any wine?" Rossi inquires as he continues to breathe in the scent of lasagna.

"You're kidding right?" Emily asks. "They're kids, where are they going to get alcohol?" Hali and I shoot each other looks and Emily smiles wryly and she gives a quick shake of her head. "You know what; I don't even want to know."

"Probably wise," I say with a small smile and Hali rolls her eyes.

**…**

"So, any ideas on who the killer is?" Reid asks me after dinner. It's dark out and we're walking around outside in the front yard. The wet ground is soaking my bare feet and a blanket of starts watch us silently from above.

"I don't know. The profile doesn't seem to fit anyone I know but…that would insinuate that I paid much attention to people around me, and I didn't." I think for a minute and look at him. "Think we'll catch him?"

"Yes." He nods briskly. "We will. We usually do, anyway."

I nod at him and look back up at the stars.

"Why do you do that?" He asks. "You're always looking at the sky; why?"

"It gives me hope. The light from these stars don't reach us for at least a thousand years so, it's kind of like looking into the past: seeing the sky that the dinosaurs were supposed to…and…with all those stars and galaxies, in theory there are infinite numbers of planets out there like Earth. It just cool to think about and great to admire, you know?"

"I think I do." He looks away from me and stares up at the sky. "So what was it like growing up here?"

"Well, it's a small town. So, it was quiet and usually fairly calm and peaceful. We'd go foraging for berries and such during the summers and fish in the ponds. Typical country stuff. What's Vegas like?"

A ghost of a smile graces his features. "Lots of gambling and magic."

I smile: "Sounds like my kind of place."

He raises and eyebrow at me. "You like magic?"

"Magic? No, not really, but I like the ideas it is based on: sleight of hand and misdirection. Plus, card games are awesome."

"Hm." Reid nods thoughtfully. "So, how do feel about Poker?"

"Well, when I get this stupid cast off, I'll show you, and you may want to wear your lucky socks that day."

The corner of his lips twitch into an amused smile. "Oh, really now?" He says sarcastically. "And why's that?"

"Because you're going to lose."


End file.
